"Oh, just the way he lived. Where he was born. Interview his
schoolteachers. Talk to the girls he dated."
Stump glanced at the checker players and then hunched himself over the
bar and spoke in a tone so low they couldn't hear him. Stump wore a sly
smirk as he talked. "Now I wouldn't stand back of this, and it isn't
anything you could put in your book, but I heard it from a pretty good
source that before Timmy took off into the army, he and that Eloise
Warden were a little better than just plain friends. Know what I mean?
She was a good-looking piece, and you can hardly blame the kid, if she
was right there asking for it. She was no good, anyway. She took off
with a salesman and nobody's seen or heard from her since."
He backed away and gave me a conspiratorial smile. "Of course, George
wouldn't know anything about it. Like they say, he'd be the last to
know."
"Are there any other relatives in town, beside George?"
"Not a one. Their daddy died six or seven years ago. George got married
right after that. Then the three of them, George, Timmy, and Eloise
stayed right on in the old Warden place. George sold that this year.
Man named Syler bought it. He chopped it up into apartments, I hear."
I talked with him for another half hour, but he didn't have very much
to add. He asked me to stop around again. I liked the atmosphere of his
bar, but I didn't like him. He was a little too eager to prove he knew
everything, particularly the unsavory details.
When I got back to the garage a little after three my car was ready. I
paid for the work. It ran smoothly on the way back to the motel south
of town. Once I was in my room with the door shut I reviewed everything
that had happened. Though I had told my lie about writing up Timmy on
impulse, I couldn't see how it could hurt anything. In fact it might
make things a good deal easier. I decided that I'd better buy some kind
of pocket notebook and write things down so that my story would stand
up a little better.
There was no reason why Timmy and the others like him shouldn't be
written up. I remembered that a magazine had done the same sort of
thing with the progressives who refused repatriation. So why not the
dead. They would be more interesting than the turncoats, who, almost
without exception, fell into two groups. They were either ignorant
and very nearly feeble-minded, or they were neurotic, out-of-balance,
with a lifelong feeling of having been rejected. The dead were more
interesting.
My one abortive attempt to find Cindy had failed. Using the cover story
of writing up Timmy, I should be able to find her. From what Timmy had
said, she was a girl who would know of a special hiding place. And the
money was there.
Unless Eloise had taken it. I was puzzled by Fitz's insistence that she
hadn't taken it.
When I went back into town for dinner I bought a notebook in a
drugstore. At dinner I filled three pages with notes. I could have
filled more. Timmy had talked a lot. There hadn't been much else to do.
I went to a movie, but I couldn't keep my mind on it. The next person
to talk to was Ruth Stamm. I could see her the next morning.
But back in the motel room I took another look at Ruth Stamm. I took
her picture out of the back of my wallet. Tomorrow, Friday, I would see
her for the first time in the flesh. I had looked at this picture a
thousand times. Timmy had showed it to me in camp. I remembered the day
we sat with our backs against a wall in watery sunshine and he took the
picture out and showed it to me.
"That's the one, Tal. I didn't have sense enough to stay with her.
That's the good one, Tal. Ruthie Stamm."
They had taken my papers away from me, including the shots of
Charlotte. I held the picture of Ruthie Stamm, turning it toward the
pale sunshine. It was cracked but none of the cracks touched her face.
It was in color and the colors had faded and changed. She sat on her
heels and scratched the joyous belly of a blond cocker while she
laughed up into the camera eye. She wore yellow shorts and a halter
top, and her laughter was fresh and good and shared.
In some crazy way it became our picture--Timmy's and mine. I took it
off his body after he died and it became mine. It represented an alien
world of sanity and kindness and strength. I looked at it often.
Now I took it out again and lay on the motel bed and looked at it in
the lamplight. And felt a tingle of anticipation. For the first time I
permitted myself to wonder if this pilgrimage to Hillston was in part
due to the picture of a girl I had never seen. And to wonder if this
picture had something to do with the death of love for Charlotte.
I put the picture away. It took a long time to get to sleep. But the
sleep that came was deep and good.