Inhabited. Charlie Quimby

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ I know.” He released her arm and turned to face her full on. “You gonna be okay tonight? You look a tad frazzled.”

      Donnie, bless him, thought he knew what weighed on her. More than two decades since Helen fell off Cold Shivers Point and Neulan Kornhauer came briefly under suspicion. Nearly a dozen years since Neulan’s role in other women’s deaths came to light. His flight and disappearance. Eight years ago, Meg took over funding the scholarship from her parents.

      “Who’s your girl this year?”

      “You can’t miss her. She’ll be the one with the purple streak in her hair. She sings in a band, plays piano and bass guitar, and her name’s Pandora Cox. How could I not pick her?”

      “Sounds like a handful,” he said.

      “That’s sort of the point.”

      “Is it a single-year deal or do you keep four scholarships going at a time?”

      She could see him doing the math in his head. “Depends. Some are two-year community college grants. Not all the kids finish.” Some who graduated had opted for marriage over career or assumed a bland adulthood. A few disappeared entirely. None had achieved the trajectory Meg had imagined for Helen.

      “I didn’t exactly know your sister.” Donnie’s gaze flicked out of the theater and came back to Meg. “But I feel your loss. I’m sure it’s not easy with that Kornhauer sonofabitch still out there.”

      “I put him out of my mind long ago,” she said.

      “Well, let’s hope he’s gone for good, and that it was a slow, nasty trip.”

      The scholarship winners trooped onstage. A boy led the audience in the Pledge of Allegiance and then a young woman stepped to a keyboard set up behind a microphone stand. In all black, she had a classical singer’s fullness and bearing, except for an amber wave through her purple hair. Pandora Cox rippled some opening chords. When her fingers reached the tonic, she rounded her lips into an 0 as if to say, you’re right, this is not going to be “The Star Spangled Banner.”

      In an earthy alto she sang “America the Beautiful,” drawing the nostalgia from the first verse’s spacious skies and fruited plain. After a quiet shedding of grace, she marched the next verse in a more military cadence past the alabaster cities. This time the refrain slipped into a minor key. Were others hearing this lamentation? A vision of America with gleaming cities walled away from human suffering. Where goodness and brotherhood dwindled into shining seas.

      “Well, that was different,” Donnie said.

      The daytime newscaster emcee asked a moment of silence from the already hushed audience for the quick recovery of our fallen police officer, then moved to his script, projecting a big-screen baby picture before summoning each award winner. The gimmick brought hoots from friends and family members but fell short of the loopy celebration Scholarship Night once had been. Not all of them were performers. Perhaps most kids preferred a more solemn event, appropriate to the idea their lives were about to change course. They could learn later that teachers could end up selling real estate, that poets made coffee for commuters, that engineers got laid off and lost their houses.

       This is their show now, not yours. Not even Helen’s.

      When Pandora collected her parchment, Donnie squeezed Meg’s shoulder. She turned, she thought, in appreciation, but her face must have told him it was time to go. He took her hand and ducked up the aisle.

      Refreshed by their spontaneous flight and the cool outside air, Meg wasn’t ready to go home. Donnie seemed to see that and headed her to the corner of Seventh where B.B. King’s “The Thrill is Gone” tramped and tumbled over the patio bar. A glass of the Entrada Cabernet would be nice, maybe two. She just had to make sure Donnie didn’t order a bottle because it would be all hers.

      As they waited for their drinks, she entertained him with an account of her conversation with Jay DeWitt. Normally, she would never discuss a client by name, but Donnie was in the excavation business and would have figured it out based on how few houses were going up right now. He chuckled at her idea of supplying high-grade fill to picky customers, once she explained what artisanal meant. Oh, it was lovely to laugh after this hard day! She started to ease out of her heels and stopped. The relief in her feet told her she might not get them back on.

      Donnie sipped his Windsor and Seven. “It’s been pouring out-of-town geniuses lately. I hear the mayor’s got you roped in with some corporate bigwig.”

      Where had he heard that? Eve had asked her to put together some ideas for an executive home tour and hinted that the related business might be substantial. But Meg didn’t even know the name of the man’s company yet.

      “All Eve’s told me is that he’s divorced.”

      This bit of non-news appeared to please Donnie. “Yeah, I thought the city was in on it. Everybody’s being so damn coy. At the Chamber meetings, Dan McCallam’s about to pee his pants with excitement but he’s keeping the news to himself. And Vince Foyer’s not as subtle as he thinks. He’s been poking around looking at good-sized parcels that are off the market. It’s hard for a developer to take a crap in this county without me at least smelling it.”

      It had been a long dry spell for Donnie’s gravel and paving businesses. Any development would be good news. He held plenty of commercial/industrial property around town, too.

      “It’s killing you not to know, isn’t it?”

      He bared his lower teeth and patted his wallet pocket. “Yeah, my tender little ego.” They laughed. “You’re looking perkier now.”

      There was no point withholding it. “Did you hear about the mess with Amy Hostetter this morning? I was down there when it happened.”

      “Are you okay? And here I been talking nothing but business.”

      He could be so sweet. Father sweet.

      “Your company’s been just what I needed. Listen, what if this tour I’m working on turns out to be related to your deal? Do you think Terri would let me show your summer house?”

      “It’s not for sale,” he said.

      “Just as an example. Glade Park should be on any tour of exclusive places to live. And for the full cultural experience, a ranch owner could show him around.”

      “I’ll check with the boss.” Donnie took her hand and wrapped it in both of his. “I’m glad you didn’t get hurt. They can’t clean up that shit hole fast enough to suit me.”

      As soon as Donnie left Meg at her car, she pulled off her heels and pitched them across the seat. Her third pair of shoes today—no, the fourth, counting the mudders. She had repackaged every part of herself at least twice for the day’s events and was now ready for a robe and that third glass of wine she’d turned down at the bar. But instead of heading straight home, she looped south toward the river where her morning began.

      Las Colonias Park wasn’t on anyone’s way, and that was its attraction to the homeless population. The feds had poured millions into clearing the ground of uranium tailings and the city had spent millions more to relocate junkyards and build a parkway to skirt the south edge of downtown. But the park itself had remained perpetually on the drawing board. Except for the Botanical Gardens, Las Colonias СКАЧАТЬ