Charle Zelnick tries to get his mother to send him to Mason City to cover
the Dorie Bendix kidnapping.

Chapter 3

I Hate You, Antonin Scalia!

"Here I stand; I can do no other...."

Martin Luther



Sometimes you wake up in the morning, walk out into the sunshine, and the sunlight becomes a laser, stenciling your forehead with the letters l-o-s-e-r.
Sure enough, when Charlie went for his usual morning stroll, Brown had the two boys scrubbing egg off Angela's siding and spearing toilet paper out of the evergreens. Angela was out in her yard supervising. She waved. Charlie waved back. Brown must have told her how he'd fingered the culprits. He wondered if it was too soon to ask her out again.
Charlie decided to walk down to the Coffee Cup and wait for Brown to show up for his usual mid-morning chocolate-covered doughnut. Sure enough, a half hour later, Brown took a solitary booth in the back, immediately being fawned over by Mrs. Booth. Charlie took a seat opposite Brown, declining Mrs. Booth's offer of more coffee.
Brown looked up. He had little piggish eyes, and so much of a double chin it could be mistaken for a goiter. "I wish you'd called me when those two punks tried to sell you that insurance," Brown said, taking a slurp of coffee. "We could have saved Angie a lot of grief."
"How was I supposed to know--?"
"Anybody with a grain of common sense would have known."
"I find your vandals for you and you try to lay a guilt trip on me," Charlie said, his blood pressure rapidly on the rise. "For that matter, what were you doing in bed when you should have been out patrolling the streets?"
Brown sipped his coffee, wiped his face with a napkin, got up, and waddled toward the cash register, Charlie hard on his heels.
"Oh, that's all right, Mike," Mrs. Booth said. "You watched my house when I went to Wisconsin Dells last summer."
"Are you sure, Margaret?"
She smiled, nodded in the affirmative. They went through this same ritual every time Brown ate here.
Charlie tapped him on the shoulder. Brown turned and pushed him away. "I'm sick of your sarcasm, Zelnick." Charlie shoved him back.
Mrs. Booth, her eyes magnified by oversized, coke-bottle glasses, looked frightened, as did her fifteen year old, ponytailed niece. Customers gathered around as if they were two boys duking it out on the playground. Charlie half expected to hear them begin to yell "Fight! Fight!"
Charlie cocked his fist. One punch in that ponderous gut and Brown would be finished in Hydrangea. The man actually carried a gun and a nightstick in a town that hadn't seen a violent crime since the Depression. Charlie bit his lip hard, tasting blood. "Let's not do this, Mike," he said. "I shouldn't have crept up on you like that."
"I'm sorry, too, Charlie," Brown said, the redness disappearing from his face. "Been having a little trouble with the Missus lately. Shouldn't have pushed you."
On the way out of the restaurant, Charlie asked if Brown had told Angela about his tip.
"Your name never came up," Brown said. "That's one tough lady, let me tell you. Cleaning the place up wasn't good enough for her. Those boys'll be helping her with her chores for the next six months."
Brown stuck a toothpick in his mouth, hitched up his pants, and headed out the door. Charlie hadn't forgiven the push. How many times did a guy turn the other cheek before he checked a gun out of the National Guard Armory and blew all the other postal clerks away?
Once out on the street, Charlie heard a strange huffing sound coming from aloft. A hot air balloon, painted in a breathtaking red and blue checkered pattern, had chosen this moment to glide past the twin, onion-shaped steeples of St. Stanislav. Charlie felt in his pockets, wondering how much a balloon ride would cost. He'd pay them anything they wanted. But the balloon floated on its way and soon was out of sight.
The telephone was ringing as Charlie let himself into his house. Who'd be calling him so early in the morning? Had to be a telemarketer. Or it could be a person randomly dialing numbers, just to have somebody to talk to. The ringing continued–-had to be twenty some rings by now. What if it was Angela calling to thank him for turning in those boys? It could be Mike Brown had told her after all. The phone stopped ringing.
A car pulled up outside and he heard the door slam. He went to the door, snatched the Star Tribune from the holder, scanned the headlines. A plane had crashed outside Philadelphia, killing 143. The governor was announcing his intension to run for a second term. A TV anchor person had been kidnapped. He hunkered down in his recliner. The person in the picture looked an awful lot like his Dorie, but she was wearing make-up, and the girl he knew never wore any. The hair color was different as well. Dorie Bendix--same first name, but his Dorie's last name was Billmeyer.
He stretched the paper tight, brought the newsprint closer. Dorie's mother had said she'd changed her name.
According to the article, she'd been taken at around five in the morning at her apartment complex. Her little red Mazda was still in the lot, but they'd found her hair dryer and keys on the ground near her car.
Dorie Billmeyer had been one of the best journalism students he'd ever had. This was devastating. Possibly that telephone call had been about Dorie. He needed to talk to someone about this. But who? Maybe he could get in touch with the TV station where she worked. The story said she'd been late, and a co-worker had given her a wake-up call. A Detective Black tried to reassure Dorie's parents and friends. He said the police were investigating every possible lead.
Charlie read the rest of the story, then sat up, staring into the black void of the TV screen. He hated his boring routine, had never done anything remotely noteworthy. Sure, he'd been a teacher for twenty years, but the job had made him tired. He guessed he'd been looking for an excuse to chuck it all, and it came when a group of juniors and seniors decided to cheat on a chemistry exam.
He'd replayed the scene in his head and in his nightmares like the Twilight Zone episode where a character had to undergo a day in his life repeatedly:
It was 8:10, school starting at 8:20. The Hydrangea Herald editorial board was debating how to report the cheating scandal. This sort of piece was always rather touchy; you didn't dare mention any names, even with the permission of the kids involved.
In actuality, only two members of the board, plus Charlie, were hassling over how the cheating item should be handled since the feature editor, and the editorial manager had not shown up for the meeting.
Dorie crossed her legs; her white nylons chafing as the material briefly caught. "I don't think we should even waste our time on a news story," she said. "I'd like to write an editorial about how adults contribute toward cheating."
"How do you mean exactly?" Charlie said, reaching up to change the month on his calendar. Already it was a month behind. Liked the picture above the dates, though. A grandfather and his granddaughter collecting pumpkins in a rickety old wheelbarrow.
Dorie brushed a tendril of hair away from her face. "Adults cheat, and they get upset when we do," she said. "I think it's two-faced. Parents teach their kids to deceive, and they complain when the inevitable happens."
"Do you really expect Mr. Zelnick to print something like that, Chub?" Perry Drong, the sports editor, said. If Perry had his way, there'd be nothing in the paper except Friday night football.
"Don't call me that," she said, reaching for the fly swatter Charlie kept to threaten eighth graders, or gesture with, during the few times that he actually lectured.
"Let's hear her out," Charlie said, slurping from his coffee cup, a present from Dorie. The inscription read "World's Greatest Teacher."
Dorie dragged her chair closer. "I just mean that adults fudge on their taxes, play around on their spouses, cheat during sports competition and much more, and they don't think we notice."
Charlie inhaled. She always smelled as if she'd just taken a bath, a definite talcum powder odor. He rubbed his face, which wasn't as smooth as it should be considering he'd shaved only an hour before. "You know it's going to look as if we're endorsing cheating on tests. You need to make sure that your editorial is balanced, and I think you need to repeat several times that the Herald does not endorse cheating," he said, rubbing the tops of his hands, which were turning blue thanks to the lack of heat in his office.
"I hate to be heard agreeing with Chub or anything," Perry said, "but I think I may have something which could stick a burr under their saddles." He pushed his cap back on his head, revealing not much but skin, the football team having shaved their heads again. "Nepotism is a kind of cheating, ain't it?"
"Where in the world did you learn that word?" Dorie said, giving Perry such a shove that he almost fell off his chair. "Don't tell me you've been studying for Mrs. Atwell's vocabulary tests?"
He righted himself. "It means the school board has been hiring relatives. They picked the A.D.'s son to teach seventh grade geography. My sister just got her degree, and she says there are hundreds of applicants for each job."
Dorie smiled at Perry. "And here I thought you were just another jock. What do you think, Mr. Z?"
The banging lockers, the grating announcements over the P.A., and the general grabassing going on out in the hall made it impossible for Charlie to concentrate. "Frankly, I think if we print that, I could be looking for another job next week. Then there's the Hazelwood decision, don't you know."
"Yes, you've been complaining about that all year. We know all about it. The Hazelwood decision gives the principal the right to censor high school publications. Does this mean you won't print the story?" Dorie asked, pointing a pout at him as if it were a handgun.
Charlie had this image in his mind of Antonin Scalia, the Supreme Court justice, arguing that if you didn't censor high school students, they'd promote the smoking of marijuana. What a Nazi! It had been a few years now since the Supreme Court decision, and Charlie was still kvetching about that stain on the Constitution.
"Absolutely not. I'm just trying to think of a way to cover my butt is all."
The strident warning bell clanged, reminding students they had two minutes to get to class. Eighth graders were lining up already outside his door. He didn't like to keep them waiting. Eighth graders added comic relief to his stressful profession, second only to air traffic controllers on the stress-o-meter.
"But this is blatant abuse of power," Dorie said, her brown eyes flashing righteous indignation.
The second bell blared, and Charlie scribbled passes for Perry and Dorie. "Go ahead and write your editorial. If necessary, I'll threaten them with the ACLU. Administrators despise them more than you people hate cold tuna casserole for lunch."
"Thanks, Mr. Z. It'll win us a blue ribbon in the Quill and Scroll contest."
Dorie and Perry left the office, fought their way through the swarm of eighth graders. Charlie fitted the key in his door, almost suffocating as the horde pressed up against him. "Got any Chiclets, Mr. Z?" Chris, a freckle-faced redhead, asked. Charlie always had gum, and they knew it.
A week or so later, after Charlie'd turned in Dorie's story along with the others for prior review, he was summoned to the office.
He knocked on the door jamb, and Peter Principal gestured him to a chair. Nesbit cradled the telephone under his chin and wrote on his ubiquitous yellow pad, the same one he used during classroom visits. Scripting he called it. He wrote down everything you did as if he were a court reporter. Every time Charlie was observed, he had the urge to stop everything, grab that yellow legal pad, and shred it over the damn fool's head.
After another five minutes of "Yeah", "Uh-huh", "Is that so?" and "No problem", the dickhead finally hung up.
Peter, a little man with no chin who'd obviously been the butt of numerous jokes when he'd been in school and was getting even, got right to the point. "Mrs. Albright says you've been making inappropriate remarks. Let's see . . ." He filtered through the yellow pages, licking his finger when he turned a page, acting as if he were enjoying himself.
Charlie should have known better than to come in here by himself. He always advised rookie teachers to have another faculty member accompany them during a meeting which is possibly disciplinary in nature. Administrators were such a gutless bunch. He was surprised the vice-principal wasn't here, just in case Charlie hauled off and punched the little wiener.
"I'm getting tired of this," Charlie said. "You and I both know what this is really about. The superintendent doesn't like Dorie Bendix's editorial."
"I'm on your side, Charlie. The Super hasn't even seen the article yet. He doesn't understand how much time you put in. I know, I was the news editor on my high school newspaper."
"You can show him the editorial," Charlie said, beginning to get worked up. "It's balanced; we're not trying to glorify cheating." There was heat in Nesbit's office. Charlie was actually sweating.
"You know what, Charlie. You identify too much with those kids. Tell you what. I'll ink out this nepotism stuff and leave in the detail about taxes. How's that?"
"That guts the story. The point is that it's not fair for a person in authority to use that power for his own personal gain."
"But Booker's son is the best candidate for the job."
"If he's that good, he should be able to find a teaching position on his own. You'd think he wouldn't even want this job."
Charlie realized his back hurt from sitting in such an awkward position. He eased back in his chair. Those old-timers were sure right about teaching. The professionalism was gone. You had a school board, a superintendent, a curriculum coordinator, a principal, a vice-principal and a department head (the only one who was a real teacher and the only one who didn't have any power) all with say-so over the classroom teacher.
"This isn't the first time they've done something like this and you know it," Charlie said. "And they'll keep on doing it until the public puts an end to it. Would you rather I gave this story to my mother's paper?" He regretted it as soon as he said it; you don't threaten kids, little ones or big ones.
"The Supreme Court says I have the right to censor the school newspaper," Nesbit said, scribbling on the yellow pad. "I'm only doing my job."
"Doing your job? Or is it feathering your own nest? I won't be able to face those kids if I don't print this story." Charlie moved his chair up against Nesbit's desk, banging against it in the process. Nesbit flinched.
Nesbit put down his pen and stood, leaning on his hands. His hands were sweating, leaving greasy stains on the mahogany. "You're bordering on insubordination, Charlie."
"I'm not going back in that journalism room unless you print that story. Just get yourself another boy. Somebody who'll print the public relations vehicle you want." Charlie crossed his arms and anchored his feet flat on the floor.
Nesbit clenched his teeth so hard Charlie could hear the grinding. "If you don't want to teach journalism, then go home. You're on paid leave of absence as of now. I'll find a substitute for your afternoon classes."
"Why don't you take them yourself? When they corner you under the desk, maybe you'll gain some empathy for teachers."
"I hope you have some money saved, Charlie."
Charlie kicked a chair into the corner. "I'll see you in court," he said. Then he tramped out of the office, hoping to slam the door off its hinges, but it was one of those air pressure kinds that are impossible to slam.
#
Charlie'd been out of teaching now for four years and told his former peers he was working on the novel he'd always wanted to write. Did he miss the kids? they asked. He said he missed the captive audience. They invariably laughed.
He got up to get a cup of coffee. The cat began coiling its mangy self around his leg. He shrugged it off; the cat meowed, seemingly saying, "All I want is a little love."
As he poured his Folgers, Charlie thought about what had happened with Mike Brown. He had to learn how to deal with people. Brown's criticism of Charlie had only been a defense mechanism. Charlie'd also been too abrupt with Peter Principal when they'd argued over the athletic director's nepotism. He should've had a drafted a response from the principal ready for publication when he'd gone into the office. When you're on the phone all day, there's no time to write. Ha.
He set the cup on the counter and stretched; his joints cracked like the ice letting go during spring thaw. The cat yawned in response.
Moving to the living room, he took up one of his favorite books, Joseph Campbell's The Hero With a Thousand Faces. Campbell's thesis was that you had to be a hero to yourself, in your own mind. Charlie glanced up at the fan above the table in his living room. There was dust on the light bulbs affixed to the fan. He had an idea. There was no evidence in Dorie's kidnapping other than the personal items found in the parking lot. According to the article, there was talk about Dorie being harassed or stalked, but there were no leads. He'd go to Mason City and snoop around, maybe talk to the people at Dorie's apartment building and at the television station. Why shouldn't he cover the case? The girl had gone to Hydrangea High School, he'd known her, it would be a great story for the Shopper, and maybe, just maybe, he could gain a little personal fulfilment in the process.
Charlie went to the closet in his bedroom, got out a cardigan sweater and the porkpie fedora he liked to wear when on the trail of a story, put them on, and ambled out the door. He'd go see his mother about kicking in some money for his trip to Mason City. Suddenly, he had a new enthusiasm for his job on the Hydrangea Shopper.
#
Charlie parked his VW in a slot next to the Shopper. The building stood adjacent to the National Brands Supermarket and across the street from The Weyerhaeuser Hotel, a local landmark that had been turned into a rest home. Ever since the renovation, there had been a clamor to erect a stoplight at this intersection. The senior citizens had some close calls trying to get to their Malted Meal and prune juice.
He got out of the VW, and headed toward the entrance of the flat, one-story building with the glass door and little alcove, formerly the American Legion Club.
Ellie Morgan, the all-purpose, one and only reporter, nudged the door open, giving him a pasted-on smile. He doffed his fedora. She responded much the same as a fastidious young lady would to a reptile and proceeded on down the street toward the court house.
Jan wasn't at the reception desk, so Charlie poured himself a cup out of the thirty-cup coffee maker. There was a stale roll left, and he put a quarter in the cup and inhaled the lemon-filled pastry in a couple of bites.
Several back issues of the Shopper were on the counter. He took July over to the customer's couch, and sat down to check his work. The July issue was the first with the double cover. A young man riding a Brahma bull adorned the fold, a picture he'd taken himself. He turned to the story on page six, the page with the headline that read "Hydrangea Rodeo Draws Record Attendance".
Peering through the bottom half of his bifocals, Charlie read: Men have been fighting bulls all the way back to the Greeks; they called it bull grappling then, and it was done by an acrobat who'd seize the bull by the horns and vault into the arms of another acrobat . . .
Once he got to the fairgrounds where the rodeo was to be performed, Charlie had been more impressed by the rodeo clowns than the riders. The bull came out of the chute roiling, twisting, exploding turf. Charlie couldn't believe how much dust was raised. The spectators were being blasted with dirt. The rider lost his seat almost immediately, but he had too tight a grip on the cinch, and the clowns had to go in and get him. One of them attacked the bull head-on, while the other tried to free the hand. The cowboy's hand came loose, and he was able to limp away, while the bull stormed after the barrel man who had gone indoors. Charlie wondered what kind of balls it would take to run at a bull like that. Hemingway and other fools thought it was such a big deal to run with bulls before the bullfights in Spain. Nothing compared to this; that baggy-pantsed paladin had actually run right at that monster!
Later Charlie'd found the clown, whose name was Archie Miner, next to the bull corral. The bulls were bawling, snorting, defecating, swishing the swarms of flies away with their tails. Occasionally one of them would take a whack at the fence, which did him little good because of the rubber bumpers put there to prevent the shattering of the boards.
During the course of preliminary questions, Charlie learned that Archie lived a few miles outside Hydrangea on a hobby farm. He wasn't around much; during the summer months he followed the professional rodeo circuit. He'd been doing so for over thirty years.
"There's a theory, Mr. Miner," Charlie said, "that men and women involved in climbing Mt. Everest, running triathlons, racing cars at dangerous speeds, and events like bullriding are on a hero's journey. You know, like Hercules?"
Archie Miner was dressed in baggy overalls topped off by an Emmet Kelly derby and white make-up with the traditional clown's bulbous red nose. An unusual element was the glasses he had perched on the large crimson proboscis. Before answering, Archie crushed his cigarette out with the toe of his boot. "Don't know nothing about any silly hero's journey," Archie said. He had a raspy voice, probably from the non-filtered cigarettes he was chain smoking. "You do what you do to make a living. After awhile fighting bulls is like going to work at the post office."
"Hmmph, never thought of it like that. Answer me one thing, though. The cowboy you saved told me you've been pronounced dead twice. Is there anything or anybody you're afraid of?"
Miner scratched his head and smiled, revealing very yellow teeth. "You bet your dang life there is. My ex-wife's lawyer was the meanest, scariest dude I ever met. Did you hear about the shark who refused to eat the lawyer out of professional courtesy?"
Although he'd heard that one more times than Bill Clinton had apologized for his sexual indiscretions, Charlie laughed. Archie said he'd like to see a copy of the story. Charlie wrote down his address, promising to send him the July issue of the Shopper.
A shadow obscured the newsprint and Jan, the receptionist, pulled on his shirt sleeve. "Mrs. Zelnick said she wanted to see you as soon as you got here," she said. Jan was about twenty-five, forty or fifty pounds overweight. She worshipped his mother, thought she was the reincarnation of Katherine Graham. "Thanks, Janice. Can I go right in, or is she with someone?"
"That's Jan, Chuck. She's waiting for yah. Has been for a good hour or so. What have you done now, Chuck?"
Nobody called him Chuck.
Charlie took the daisies out of the mason jar on Jan's desk and shuffled over to his mother's door, tapping gently.
When he peeked inside the door, she said, "Get on in here, Charlie. I got something hot for yah," She was sitting behind the desk with her feet up, varicose veins showing. Seventy years old and she had the manners of a hooker. She was crunching numbers on her adding machine.
"Don't slouch like that," she said. "You remind me more and more of your father every day." He sat in the visitor's leather chair, handing her the daisies. She took them and set them off to the side, not bothering to hunt for a vase, although there was an empty one on a file cabinet behind her. The place was a mess, old newspapers piled on chairs, cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, empty coffee cups stacked on the coffee table. "How's the house, Charlie? I don't know why you bother with it. I've got an extra bedroom you could use."
He sank lower in the chair.
She watched him for a moment. Finally she said, "Have you heard about the Billmeyer girl?" She was chewing on a lead pencil; there were dozens of them in a coffee cup on her desk, all with bite marks. "You haven't heard from her lately, have you?" she said. "There was a rumor going around for awhile about there being something between you two." She picked up a mock-up of one of the classified pages and began to blue pencil some of the items. Charlie clenched his teeth and held on to the armrest. "Got you in a big mess, too, as I recall. But forget that; I want you to go talk to Jill Haskell, or I guess it's Jondura now since she married Ben. I don't give that marriage much of a chance, do you?"
He removed his hat, commenced worrying the crease.
"We can get a neat little feature out of that. If you do a nice job, I think I can give you a little boost in your pay envelope. I'll bet you can use it what with that bird droppings of a pension you've got." His mother punched a button on the phone and said, "Jan, get me an appointment with Sadie Turner for a henna rinse." She put the phone back on its cradle. "Jan, now there's a good girl for you, child-bearing hips . . . She comes from good stock. Her mother is on the school board."
Charlie rubbed the sleep out of his eyes, swept the hair away from his face, took a deep breath. "Talking to Jill might not be such a bad idea, for starters. What do you think, though, about me doing a series on this? How 'bout I drive down there to Mason City and check it out personally?"
"I don't know, Charlie. I don't have a lot of space. Eleven inches is all I can allow for this one. Let's get this one done and then we'll see, okay?"
She took out a Winston from the pack she had lying on the desk next to the phone. Charlie lit it with his Zippo. This was his chance to nail one. Write this series on Dorie Bendix and sell it to one of the wire services.
"I don't suppose you've heard anything from your father? You'd tell me if you had, wouldn't you?"
"Not since I was fifteen, Ma. Just like you. Why would you think he'd want to get in touch with me? He thought I was a sissy."
"Your father was the star quarterback on his high school team. You can't really blame him for wanting a son who was good at football."
"You're a better man than he ever was, Ma. You didn't blink an eye when he left. You turned this pathetic rag into a money-making proposition."
She blew some smoke toward the ceiling fan. "You didn't turn out so terrible either. At least you've got your pension. When you flunked out of the University and enlisted in the Navy, I thought you'd wind up on skid row."
Standing up to go, he leaned forward to kiss her on the cheek, then thought better of it. "I'll go see Jill," he said. "Shouldn't be too tough to write up. I'll have it for you tomorrow."
She waved him off. Already on the phone.
Charlie put his foot to the floor of the Volkswagen, at the same time turning the key. It burst to life on the first try, a very good omen. He chugged away down Main, his course set for Wild Flower Lane, where Jill and Bennie lived in a little ranch house surrounded by a hurricane fence.
Maneuvering between a Ford Taurus and a GMC pickup, Charlie parked the VW at the last house on the corner. The Jondura's buzzer was on the gate. Jill came to the door, assuming a scouting pose, although the sun was at her back. Her face lit up when she realized who it was; he hadn't seen Jill since graduation. She'd been a photographer on the Herald. He was always yelling at her for missing deadlines, but she didn't seem to hold a grudge.
Jill let him in and set about clearing a place for him on the couch, asked if he wanted a beer. Took his lack of response for a yes.
She disappeared momentarily, and he was left alone with the baby who had the most vacant stare he'd ever seen on a child, or anybody for that matter. Weren't they supposed to blink? She handed him a Bud Light. Would it hurt for him to have one little beer? The last binge had almost killed him. What the hell; that was before he had a goal.
"Nice to see you again, Jill. How long has it been? Look, I want to get out of your way as soon as possible. I know you're really busy. You've heard about Dorie?"
Jill sat down and took the baby out of its swing. "I don't know what I can tell you," she said. "I talked to her last week on the phone. We call each other every week."
"Was she having any difficulty?" he said.
"Well, I don't know how important it is, but she said there were absolutely no men in Mason City, and she was thinking of taking any job in the Cities, in public relations or sales or producing or anything as long as she could get out of Mason City." Jill gave the baby a pacifier when he started to whimper.
"Anything else? I mean anything, no matter how innocuous. I need to write a feature for my mother."
"I can't believe you actually work for your mother, Mr. Z. You used to talk about her as if she were Lucretia Borgia. For that matter, I can't see how you could work for any woman. Remember Mrs. Lorraine?" Mrs. Lorraine was the dragon lady who ran the annual. "And then there was the curriculum director, Mrs. Sanchez. You compared her to a form of bacteria."
"It wasn't just women. I hated administrators, too. Then there were the coaches. The band director. The color guard adviser."
"We all used to think you acted so much like W.C. Fields. You even talk out of the side of your mouth."
He took a slug of his beer. "Somebody put some pineapple juice in my pineapple juice," he said, trying to get at least as close as Ed McMahon did. "Now what about Dorie, Jill?"
"Let's see, she was still seeing a shrink about that baby-sitting incident."
The baby started whimpering again, and she smelled his diaper. Please, God, he thought.
"About the crib death," Charlie said, "I don't see how that would have anything to do with her kidnapping, unless she just took off."
"That's a possibility, but I think she would have told me. You see we had this special tie. Did I ever tell you she saved my life?"
"Hundreds of times. You forget we had all that time to kill between deadlines when you people were supposed to be working on your stories."
"That was such a hoot. We'd get them done in a day, if that, and gossip the rest of the time. Journalism was better than a study hall. I miss school so much."
The phone rang, and Jill answered it. It was the cordless kind. Charlie still had the old rotary type. "Let's see," she said. "I need more diapers, baby food, some milk. Better get two gallons. . . .I know you just got some the day before yesterday. It's gone, Benny."
She put the baby back in his swing, and the kid screwed up his face as if he were going to cry. Charlie made a face at him, and the kid started to drool.
"You be home at six now," she said. "I don't want to have to call the bar again. I need that milk." She pushed a button and laid the phone down on the coffee table. The baby stretched for it but couldn't quite reach it since it was a good ten feet away. Charlie got up and offered his finger. The kid latched onto it and wouldn't let go. Do babies bite? he wondered.
"The paper mentions a stalker," he said. "She say anything about that?"
A light went on in Jill's eyes. "Oh, yeah, I forgot. She was telling me she's been getting these presents, flowers, jewelry, and they're not from any of her old boyfriends. She called them all, and it was a definite no."
Hmmm, the most helpful piece of information she has, and she keeps it for last. People were conspiring against his sanity.
"She said she thought she actually saw the guy, you know. She'd been out jogging, and this same guy kept turning up. Never close or anything. He'd be sitting on the bench in the park when she ran by, or he'd be walking this German shepherd."
"Did she say what the guy looked like?"
"Not that I can remember. She did go to the police about it, though. They told her there wasn't anything they could do until the guy actually tried something."
Charlie tsked. "Well, thanks, Jill. This could help quite a bit. Maybe the police have a description of this person."
"Mr. Z, are you really going to go to Mason City? There are all sorts of crazy rumors going around; a guy on the Internet says whoever kidnapped her is holding her prisoner and having a lot of fun. It seems to me the police are grasping at straws."
"You think I could be a possible suspect? I have a good alibi. I was right here in Hydrangea, out trick-or-treating."
"I heard about Ms. Martin's house getting vandalized. You've got a crush on her, don't yah? Why don't you tell her? She's all alone, too. You'd make a great couple."
"It's a long sad story, Jill. Bluntly put, she thinks she's too good for me."
"You want me to talk to her for you?"
"If Angela Martin finds out I need a Dolly Levi, she'll think I'm a bigger wimp than she already does."
"We do it all the time, Mr. Z. How do you think I got together with Ben? If I'd waited for him to make the first move, I'd still be single."
He managed to extricate his finger. "Well, I think I've got enough," he said. "I'll maybe write that stuff about you two being blood sisters and maybe about the baby-sitting thing, if you think the family wouldn't mind. Maybe a little about journalism class. Can't fire me now, can they?"
"It was good to see you again, Mr. Z. Don't be such a stranger. The baby likes you, I can tell. You don't know what you're missing."
Charlie knew perfectly well what he was missing. He'd just heard it during the phone conversation with Bennie. He leaned over and gave Jill a hug. He'd never hugged her before. It seemed appropriate somehow.
He chugged off in the Volkswagen, almost making it home before that lunatic Brown stopped him and gave him a fix-it ticket for his muffler.
As he opened the door to his house, the cat came running out and disappeared into a bush. Forgot to let psycho cat out this morning.
Charlie spooned some coffee into the little basket for the Mr. Coffee, poured a half gallon of water into the top, flipped the "on" switch, and washed his breakfast dishes. By the time he was finished, the coffee was ready, and he took a cup upstairs where he checked his e-mail on the computer. Nothing but spam as usual. He moved the mouse to Word Perfect.
Before long he had his eleven inches, barely covering the five W's and the H. Why couldn't his fiction be this easy? Charlie reread the copy, changing a verb here, an adjective there. There must be some way to trick himself into thinking his novel was only a long feature for the Shopper. He printed a copy of the story in fourteen-point bold, minimizing the chance that his mother's crack typesetters would garble a word, a sentence, or a paragraph.