“Maybe things will get better here,” he suggested.
“Yeah, right, with that turkey of a mayor we’ve got.”
Chris grimaced beneath the mask. “Well, there’ll be an election in November,” he said. Sam Braga’s most recent op-ed piece in the Journal had suggested that Valle Rosa’s experience with Chris underscored the need to take the upcoming mayoral election very seriously. Chris couldn’t agree more.
“November’s not soon enough.” The woman pulled a broken chunk of a plate from the ashes and slipped it into her box.
Chris was quiet again, glad of the anonymity the handkerchief across his face afforded him. After a few minutes, his fingers caught on something, and he carefully pulled it from beneath a pile of charred wood. It was a Fostoria platter, huge and heavy and perfect, except for the soot. “Look!” He held it out to her, and she caught her breath. He watched her eyes tear up again.
“I never even dreamed that would still be in one piece,” she said. She took the platter from him, reverently, then looked him directly in the eye. “Thanks,” she said. “You’ve made my day.”
12
CARMEN SAT AT HER kitchen table over half a grapefruit and an English muffin, sifting through the stack of bills next to her coffee cup. She had avoided looking at them for weeks. Nothing extravagant: insurance, telephone, and, of course, water. And yet she would barely be able to pay them. Cosmetic surgery was completely out of the question. She had thought about asking for a raise, but now that she knew they were keeping her around merely out of charity, she didn’t dare make waves. If, God forbid, News Ninelet her go, she would have to put Sugarbush on the market. She would have no choice. The thought made her panicky. Sugarbush was all she had.
There was absolutely nothing of substance to report on the news tonight. No new tidbits to pass on about Jeff Cabrio, nothing she could use to further build an air of mystery around him. She had wanted to do a story on the undocumented workers living in the canyon, focusing on how they were affected by the drought, but Dennis Ketchum had vetoed the idea. “There’s no sympathy for them right now,” he’d said. “People have their own problems to worry about.”
Carmen still left the hose attached to her outside tap, as she had for years, knowing that at night the workers would steal into her yard for a shower and a few buckets of water to take back to their camp. Every once in a while she would find a few coins left behind in payment, but she never touched their money. There had been a time when she knew the workers by name, knew each of their stories and the hardships they’d endured. She’d give them work in her yard and food from her kitchen. It could have been her, she’d thought; it could have been someone in her own family. There were too many of them now for her to learn their names, and far too many stories to hear, but she let them have her water. It was all she could offer right now.
So covering the workers in the canyon wasn’t an option, and she had no other brilliant ideas for stories. She would have to go out to the newest fires, see what she could dredge up there. “The Carmen Perez Fire Report.” The words made her cringe.
After breakfast, she dressed in jeans and a long-sleeved white shirt and was on her way out the door when Jeff appeared around the side of the house.
He stopped short when he saw her, standing a few yards away as though she might bite if he got closer. “There’s a screen missing from one of the windows in the living room,” he said. “Do you have a spare?”
“Can it wait until tonight?”
He nodded. “I’m on my way to the warehouse, so no rush.”
They walked toward their cars, that space still between them. “So, Jeff,” she said, “how about an interview?”
“No thanks.”
“I hear you’re quite a fascinating guy.”
He looked out toward the canyon. “People think what they want to think.”
“And they believe what they want to believe. It seems like I’m the only one who thinks you’re a charlatan.”
“You’d be an idiot to think anything else at this point.”
“Are you dangerous?”
He glanced sideways at her. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, do I need to be afraid of you? Because I’m going to do everything in my power to expose you.”
“Well, then, I guess I’m the one who should be afraid.”
“Where did you work last?”
He smiled. “Do you honestly expect me to answer that?”
“Who did you con last? Was it an individual or another town full of desperate people? Was it rain you promised them, or oil, or a successful harvest, or homes for the homeless and jobs for the unemployed?”
“Carmen,” he said, “I wouldn’t dare tell you for fear of spoiling your fun.”
She looked at his car. “Your license plate is from Ohio,” she said. “Is that where you’re from?”
“Maybe.”
“Okay, so you’re from Ohio. Are you married? Do you have kids?”
He opened his car door and looked directly at her for the first time, his eyes a dark blue. “Give it up, Carmen,” he said. “I don’t like your line of work. I don’t like the way you shove your way into people’s private lives.”
“Chris says you’re an environmental engineer. Where did you get your degree?”
“I’d like to have that screen by tonight, please.” He got into the car, but Carmen caught the door.
“Look. Just tell me where you were born. That can’t be asking too much.”
He sighed, looking back toward his cottage. “Springfield,” he said. “May I go now?”
For a moment, she was stunned into silence that he had given her an answer; albeit one that was fairly useless. “Springfield where?” she asked. “There’s a Springfield in practically every state.”
“Hmm.” He half-smiled. “Is there, now?”
She watched him pull out of the driveway. Springfield, Ohio? Illinois? He was probably lying, but at least it gave her a place to start.
LATE THAT EVENING SHE carried the screen over to his cottage. The screens for these old outbuildings were nothing more than wire mesh suspended between two lengths of wood. They were flimsy and not secured to the sides of the window frame, but they offered enough protection for Valle Rosa. It kept out the moths and the flies. There were no mosquitoes.
Her knock wasn’t answered, and she turned to see if Jeff’s car was in the driveway, but the view was blocked by the adobe. She tried the door. It was unlocked, and as she slipped into the living room she felt a thrill of excitement at being in his house, of being surrounded by potential clues about him. This wasn’t trespassing, she told herself. She was the landlord; he needed a screen.
It wasn’t until she had opened the rear window of the living room that she heard the sound of running water. He was in the shower.
For a moment, she froze, her hands on the screen. Then her eyes fell on the small table in the corner, where a wallet lay open next to the old wrought iron lamp. She glanced toward the hallway.
She fastened the screen to the bottom of the window frame, then walked to the table. The wallet was made of dark leather, worn to a shiny finish. His driver’s license was tucked into a clear plastic pocket and completely exposed to her view. He looked pale in the picture, with at least two days’ growth of beard, and his expression was flat, his eyes nearly closed. She wished Chris could see this picture. He wouldn’t be able to think of Cabrio as anything other than a common criminal.
The license was indeed from Ohio. She memorized his address—500 Kenyon Street, Columbus—and his birth date— 3-12-56.
The water was still running. She could search the wallet if she wanted to. Her heart began to beat audibly in her ears, playing against the background music of the running water. She would have to talk to him about letting the water run so long. He was from Ohio. He didn’t understand the need to turn the water off to soap, on again to rinse. Then again, what did he care if her water bill was outrageous?
Five hundred Kenyon Street.
There was cash. She could see that without even touching the wallet. Quite a wad of it, too. Did he have more stashed somewhere else in the cottage? Did the fact that he was obviously behaving like a criminal give her the right to search the rooms when he wasn’t there?
March-twelve, nineteen-fifty-six.
Perspiration broke out on her forehead.
She carefully lifted one edge of the inside pocket of the wallet, her hand shaking.
Don’t do this, Carmen.
There was a newspaper clipping. It slipped out easily between the tips of her fingers. The thump of her heartbeat nearly masked the sound of the shower as she opened the yellowed clipping, which threatened to fall apart at its well-worn creases. Inside was a newspaper picture of two little blond-haired girls sitting on top of an elephant. The caption read: “Cleo gives Katie and Holly Blackwell a ride.”
The water stopped. Carmen quickly refolded the clipping and slipped it back into the wallet. She took a few steps down the hallway toward the bathroom, trying to slow her breathing.
“Jeff?”
“Who’s there?”
“It’s Carmen, Jeff. I put the screen in for you.”
There was a beat of silence before he answered. “Okay,” he said. “Thanks.”
“And Jeff? You shouldn’t let the water run that long. You should turn it off while you—”
He opened the bathroom door, a blue towel around his waist. Soap-scented steam poured into the hallway. Surely he could read the guilt in her face. Her heart began to race again.
“Come in, Carmen,” he said. Drops of water fell from his dark hair to his shoulders.
She hesitated.
“Come on,” he said.
She took a step into the bathroom and saw that the claw foot tub had a couple of inches of water in it and that he had rigged up some sort of siphoning system from the tub to a bucket on the floor.
“I’m using the water to flush the toilet,” he said, pointing to the bucket. “And I’m going to use it for my laundry, too. Does that meet your approval?”
She couldn’t help a sudden smile. “Yes,” she said, “that’s fine.” She thought of asking him to rig up a similar system for the adobe, but quickly bit her tongue.
Once she was walking back to the adobe, though, she wished he had been completely, malevolently wasteful of the water. She wanted him to be one hundred percent evil. It was the only way she could justify what she had done, and the only way she could justify what she was going to do next.
500 KENYON STREET WAS the address of a motel in Columbus, Ohio, and she was disappointed. She spoke by phone with the manager, who had no memory of a man fitting Jeff’s description having stayed there recently.
“But, uh, this is the kind of place you don’t take much notice of who comes and goes, if you know what I mean.” The manager gave a greasy chuckle. “Most people who come here just as soon you took their money and gave them a key and turned your head the other way.”
There was a Springfield in Ohio, but there were Springfields in more than a dozen other states as well. Carmen spent an hour in the lunchroom at News Nine with a paper and pencil and map, trying to use logic to narrow down her search. Ohio was most likely, of course. She ruled out New Hampshire and Maine and Massachusetts, since he had no trace of a New England accent. Of course he may have been born in one of those states and moved someplace else the next day. Or, more likely, he was lying about Springfield in the first place. She ruled out the South and the West, narrowing it down to Ohio, Illinois, New Jersey, New York, Minnesota, and Missouri. Now what? She needed contacts in those states to check birth records. A former colleague worked in Chicago. She had never been too close to him, but she could grovel a little, promise something in return. First, though, she called Tom Forrest, and read off her list of states.
“Do you know anyone who might be able to check those records?”
Tom sighed. “You’re working on some pretty slim leads, Carmen.”
“I know, but they’re all I have. Please, Tom? The name’s Jeff—Jeffrey, I suppose—Cabrio, born March 12, 1956 in Springfield.”
“He told you his date of birth, too?”
“I happened to see his driver’s license.” She thought of what else she’d seen in her guilty little perusal of his wallet. “Tom? I just had a thought. If ‘Cabrio’ doesn’t work, try ‘Blackwell.’”
“You think he’s using an alias?”
“It would make sense if he’s on the run, wouldn’t it?”
“Where did you get ‘Blackwell’ from?”
“Doesn’t matter.” She couldn’t admit to Tom how she had learned that name. She didn’t even like admitting it to herself.
“This will probably take a couple of days,” Tom said.
“No problem, as long as the fires hold out.” She grimaced at her own insensitivity, thinking of Chris’s old neighborhood. He’d looked pretty glum when he’d brought over a few gallons of paint early that morning. She was probably the only person in Valle Rosa who woke up hoping there’d be a new fire burning someplace.
HER COLLEAGUE IN CHICAGO was willing, but wouldn’t be able to check the records for her until the following week. Tom, however, called back the next day.
“It’s New Jersey,” he said.
“Really? You found something?”
“There was nothing under Cabrio on that date, but you were right about Blackwell. A Robert Blackwell was born on March 12,1956, in Springfield, New Jersey.”
Carmen bit her lip. “Robert Blackwell.” She tried to connect the name to Jeff. “It could be a completely different person.”
“I think not,” Tom said. “He was born to a Steven Blackwell and an Elizabeth Cabrio.”
“Oh, my.” Carmen covered her mouth with her hand, smiling. This was entirely too easy. She almost felt sorry for Jeff, that he was no better than this at covering his tracks. What the hell was this man’s game? He was only getting money for supplies, Chris had said. So was he actually buying supplies, or was he pocketing the money? She thought of the wad of cash in his wallet.
“Well,” she said. “I guess with his real name I can learn all there is to know.”
“Yes, you probably can, if you want to screw things up for yourself.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Show me you’re as bright as you always were, Carmen. You tell me what I mean.”
She was quiet for a moment, thinking. Undoubtedly, Jeff was wanted for something. There was a good chance that with his real name, she could find out what that was and turn him in. She’d save the citizens of Valle Rosa from pouring more money and energy into his scam, when they could be searching for real solutions to the water problem. Chris would look bad, but better to look bad now than after months of dumping Valle Rosa’s financial resources into Cabrio’s pocket.
And she would look like a hero.
But it would be short-lived. Tom was right. Carmen Perez saved the day. Big deal. Her flame would burn like wildfire for a week or two, and then fizzle out to nothing.
“No one else knows his real name,” Tom prompted her. “No one except me, and I can guarantee you I’m not going to utter a word. This one’s yours.”
Carmen smiled to herself. No one else knew, and it was unlikely that anyone else could find out. She could take her time, then. She could learn the facts about him slowly, feed information to her audience piecemeal, like Sheherezade, keeping her king so hungry for the next installment of the story that he forgot he had wanted her dead. It would be elegant. Once she knew the truth, though, she would tell Chris before she told anyone else. She would give Chris a chance to save face.
“You’re right, Tom,” she said. “I’ve got it.”
SHE WAS LATE GETTING home that evening, but Jeff was even later. It was after eleven when his Saab pulled into the driveway. She watched from her kitchen window as he set out on foot across Sugarbush, quickly disappearing into the darkness. When she
saw a light go on inside his cottage, she picked up her flashlight and followed him.
He answered the door on her second knock. He seemed suddenly taller than her memory of him, and with the light coming from the room behind him, his features were nearly impossible to see. That unnerved her, and she had to remind herself that she was the one with the advantage here. She was the one in control.
She looked past him into the living room. His briefcase was on the coffee table, papers spilling over its edges. In the middle of the room stood a tall, four-legged yellow stool, a saw lying across its seat.
Her palms were damp, and she pressed them together as she drew in a breath. “I wanted to make sure your quarters are comfortable, Robert,” she said.
Even in the dim light, she thought she could see the color drain from his face.
“That’s not my name,” he said.
“No?”
“No. And if you suggest to anyone, on the air or off, that it is, I’ll leave Valle Rosa immediately.” He took a step toward her, and she glanced again at the saw, fighting the urge to back away from him.
“Maybe that’s not such a bad idea,” she said.
“Fine. You can put out your goddamned fires by yourself.”
She stepped off the porch. “You don’t need to worry. I won’t tell anyone your name, Jeff.” She emphasized the word “Jeff.” “Good night, now.”
The following night, she prepared her North County Report with great care.
“All eyes in Valle Rosa continue to focus on the rainmaker,” she said, exaggerating, but knowing that by making that pronouncement, it would begin to come true. “News Ninehas learned that Valle Rosa’s mystery man, Jeff Cabrio, was born in Springfield, New Jersey, and lived most recently in Columbus, Ohio.”
After her report, Dennis Ketchum stopped her in the hall. “Where are you getting this stuff?” he grinned, sucking on a cigarette. “Is Cabrio talking to you?”