The Moon Around Sarah (12 page)

Raymond turned off the engine, killed the lights, and got out. He walked up to the deputy, his long stride and set jaw slightly aggressive.

‘Tucker?’ The deputy asked.

‘Yeah. Is there a detective here?’

‘Not yet. I just got here myself.’

‘Have you found my daughter?’

‘No. I haven’t really had time to look around much yet,’ the deputy answered tonelessly. He didn’t seem to like Raymond’s attitude. The brass nameplate above his pocket read: ‘Tomlinson’. There were three yellow sergeant’s stripes on his shirt-sleeves. His right hand rested on the butt of his holstered pistol.

Edward was looking up at Don’s studio as he joined the
group of men. ‘It’s dark up there,’ he said to the cop. ‘Shouldn’t you go up and have a look?’

‘They’re not up there,’ Jake put in.

Raymond gave him a look that said, ‘Who the hell are you?’ Aloud he asked, ‘How do you know?’

‘I loaned Don my car. Him and the girl took off three or four hours ago.’

‘Where were they going?’ Edward wanted to know.

‘I didn’t ask. It wasn’t my business,’ Jake replied.

‘God damn it!’ Raymond’s temper flared up. ‘Sheriff – have you got a description of that car?’

‘Of course. I know that station wagon. And I know Don March. A hell of a lot better than I know you.’ He added, ‘Although I do seem to remember meeting you a couple, three times a few years ago.’

‘Is that so? Tomlinson, is it – I don’t recall meeting you.’

The deputy said, ‘No, you wouldn’t.’

‘Look,’ Jake put in, ‘I know Don, too. Real well. Your daughter’s in no danger. Take my word for it.’

‘
Your
word?’ Raymond shouted. ‘Why should I? Who the hell are you?’

Jake bristled but didn’t answer. It wasn’t worth it.

‘I’ll have a bulletin put out,’ Sgt Tomlinson assured them. ‘Our patrol units will keep an eye out for them. For now, I wouldn’t worry, Tucker. Your daughter is an adult, isn’t she?’

‘Yes,’ Edward said, speaking quickly before Raymond could jump in with one of his tirades, ‘but she’s retarded, you see.’

Jake’s face expressed surprise. He would never have guessed that about Sarah, looking at the pretty young woman.

‘All the same,’ Tomlinson said with a slight shrug of his shoulders, ‘it can’t be called kidnapping, can it? Jake saw them leave. He says the girl was smiling, going along
willingly
.’

‘If he has so much as touched her.…’ Raymond began. His words were strangled by anger.

‘
Then
it would be a matter for the law,’ Tomlinson said. ‘For right now.…’

In the middle of Tomlinson’s sentence, they became simultaneously aware of a car pulling into the alley,
headlights
glaring, and the rusty yellow and white station wagon drew up behind Raymond Tucker’s Buick and was switched off. ‘You see,’ the sergeant said, ‘a lot of worry over nothing.’

Raymond spun on his heel, ignoring the deputy sheriff and began striding toward the Chevrolet, his face grim.

‘Raymond!’ Edward grabbed at his father’s shoulder but was shaken off.

‘Tucker!’ Deputy Tomlinson yelled, but Raymond wasn’t going to be stopped. He was going to beat the hell out of that kid who had taken off with Sarah, and that was that.

Don March sat in the station wagon watching the tall man rush toward him. Without having been told, he knew immediately who it was. Calmly, he locked his door as Raymond grabbed the handle and tried to rip it open. The nail of Raymond Tucker’s middle finger was torn half off, and he began screaming curses.

‘Sarah!’

A woman’s hysterical voice shrieked, and Sarah looked at Don, smiled, and got out of the car. She had to; her mother was calling. Don smiled back at her and locked that door as well after she was out.

Tomlinson and Jake had arrived at the station wagon; Edward, his expression pained, trailing.

‘Back off, Tucker!’ Tomlinson ordered as Raymond continued to paw at the handle and beat on the window glass. Don had leaned back with folded arms and sat watching the madman’s antics.

‘I’m going to kill the son-of-a-bitch!’ Raymond Tucker bellowed.

‘No, you’re not,’ Tomlinson said. ‘But if you don’t quit this crap right now I’m going to cuff you and take you in for disturbing the peace.’

‘Raymond?’ Edward stepped between his father and the car. Raymond’s shoulders continued to tremble with terrible anger. His eyes were wild; he clicked his teeth like a savage animal.

Don looked away deliberately.

‘We don’t have time for this, Raymond,’ Edward was saying, ‘we have to get those papers signed. If you go to jail now, everything is ruined! Besides,’ he said, trying for a soothing tone, ‘Sarah is all right. Really.’

‘How do we know that?’ Raymond asked, panting as he continued to glower at Don March. ‘It doesn’t
show
, does it?’

‘Knock it off, Tucker,’ Tomlinson said. ‘You’re making a fool out of yourself. File a police report if you have a
problem. I’m not going to warn you again – I will take you to jail if you can’t settle down.’ Then to Don, ‘March? I need to talk to you.’

‘Sure, Tomlinson,’ Don said placidly. Raymond, still incensed, was standing crouched, his muscles taut like a big cat ready to leap. Instead of opening the door and inviting trouble, Don rolled the car window down a scant two inches.

‘What’s up, Mark?’ he asked Tomlinson.

‘It’s about the girl. They have some idea you kidnapped her or something. Maybe molested her, I don’t know. Why’d you take off with her?’

‘Well,’ Don said looking directly into Raymond’s burning eyes, ‘I’ll tell you. Her family here left Sarah sitting out in that storm this morning. She was confused and wet. I brought her up to my place to dry off. Her brothers found me somehow and I brought them over here, but by then Sarah had taken off. I went and fetched her again down at the pier. Her brothers seemed to have more important things to do and so
they
were gone by the time we returned. I borrowed Jake’s wagon to go out looking for them, but the girl knows where she lives and got me back there via sign language. When I got to her home, only her aunt was there and she was in a big hurry to leave for the bus station. She told me to bring Sarah back to town to the office of a lawyer named Dennison. That’s where I was heading when I saw all of the activity in front of Jake’s garage.’

Tomlinson shook his head. Speaking to Edward, the deputy said, ‘It sounds to me more like a case of someone
trying to be a good Samaritan than an abduction, wouldn’t you say?’

‘He’s full of shit,’ Raymond said.

‘I can prove it,’ Don told Sergeant Tomlinson, ‘the aunt’s bus can’t have left yet. We were only a few minutes behind her cab heading to the station. You can check with her.’

‘No,’ the deputy sheriff said, ‘I don’t believe that’s
necessary
. I’ve wasted enough time on this foolishness. I know you well enough, Don. Some people just got themselves a little worked up over nothing.’

He turned and walked back over to where Sarah, smiling, stood with her mother, not to verify March’s story, but to see for himself as the ‘book’ required that there were no marks or signs of assault visible on the girl. His flashlight flickered on; Sarah, apparently fascinated by the light, continued to smile as he checked her over briefly. Seemingly satisfied, he lowered its beam. They did hear him whistle softly in surprise as he caught sight of the fresh stitches on Ellen’s forehead.

Edward watched the brief examination worriedly and then said, ‘Raymond – we’ve got to get going. Dennison….’

‘I’ll be with you in a minute,’ Raymond answered. There was barely subdued anger still in his tone. ‘Go on!’

Edward nodded, glanced at Don and walked away. When Edward was out of earshot, Raymond bent down and said through the window, ‘You’re not through with me yet, punk. I’ll be around. I’ll find you again, and when I do I’m going to kick your ass.’

‘You might,’ Don agreed. ‘But then again, you might not. I’m not your son, Tucker, and I’m not a woman. I fight back.’

Raymond Tucker glared at him through the window glass for a long time. Finally, he slammed the flat of his hand against the station wagon’s roof and walked off, cursing and biting at his torn fingernail.

Edward had already started the Roadmaster’s engine. As Raymond approached, he slid over on the seat and let his father get behind the steering wheel. Raymond pulled away almost immediately. Sarah was in the back seat beside her mother, and as the Buick drove off, she turned to look back at Don. She did not lift a hand, but as the Buick exited the alley and disappeared onto the cross street, she continued to look back at him.

Don finally clambered out of the car. Tomlinson looked at him, lifted a hand in farewell and returned to his cruiser, shaking his head.

Jake stood waiting in the garage doorway, hands on his hips.

‘Man, what a bastard, huh!’

‘He’s all of that,’ Don agreed.

‘Pretty stupid, too, wanting to get into a fight in front of a cop.’

‘Yeah.’ Don still stared toward the head of the alley. His world seemed to have suddenly shrunk quite dramatically.

‘Kind of a rough day, was it?’ Jake asked. He draped a friendly arm over Don’s shoulders.

‘Rough,’ Don answered, ‘and strangely wonderful.’

Tomlinson had started his police car after writing a brief report. He tooted his horn, lifted a hand in farewell and backed from the alley.

‘I’ll tell you what,’ Jake suggested, ‘why don’t we put the station wagon away in the garage and walk down to Nellie’s and have a few beers and a long talk?’

‘Sure, Jake. Sounds like a good idea,’ Don told the
blackbearded
fisherman.

It was something to do anyway. Talk. It wouldn’t solve a damn thing, but Don had been trying all day to come up with an idea of how to help Sarah and had come up empty. There just didn’t seem to be a way. None at all.

Jake started the station wagon and pulled it forward into the oily-smelling garage. He locked up the Chevrolet and turned off the lights inside the building. Fog had begun to drift in from off the sea. The night had gone, empty and lonely. Sarah was gone; it would be empty and lonely for a long while to come.

The heavy garage door banged shut and Jake snapped a padlock on its hasp.

‘Ready, Don?’

‘Sure.’

Jake slapped his shoulder, ‘It’ll be all right man. I’m a Christian, you know. I believe things will work out if that’s the way they’re meant to be.’

But Don was not so sure. He hadn’t spoken to God for a long, long time. Even then, they hadn’t communicated too well.

They shuffled along the broken pavement toward the corner bar where the music was usually a little too loud and the conversation slightly stupid. It didn’t matter;
everything
was OK in Nellie’s. It was just another place to be.

Jake went to the bar and, with much banter between himself and the bar girl, returned to the scarred wooden table where Don sat, carrying four longneck bottles of beer.

Jake placed two bottles in front of Don, seated himself with a slight grunt, and asked, ‘OK. Want to tell me about it?’

Don began to reply, but stopped. He had been looking the place over, watching a game of eight-ball in the open adjoining room, noticing who was here. Jake was waiting for an answer; Don gave him none. He was looking
incredulously
at the end of the bar where it curved around to meet the wall next to the pay phone.

Eric Tucker was seated there, staring moodily into some nowhere land. He was pouring down shooters of whisky, chasing them with beer. Don thought that he had to be mistaken, that it couldn’t be. But no – he could see Eric’s black eye, the heavy bruise on his jaw; recent gifts from his father. What in bloody hell was Eric doing here?

Don mentally shrugged it off. Screw Eric Tucker. He had a right to be wherever he wanted to be, didn’t he? Don was through worrying about the Tucker family.

‘What did happen today, Don?’ Jake was asking. ‘Was everything just the way you told Tomlinson?’

‘Everything I told Mark Tomlinson was the truth, yes,’ Don answered. He took a drink from his bottle of beer. ‘But there’s more to this mess, Jake. Quite a bit more.’

‘Such as?’ the bearded man wondered.

Don told him.

‘H
OLY
C
HRIST
!’ J
AKE
said softly when Don March had finished describing his day with Sarah and the Tucker clan, leaving nothing out. ‘What kinda family is that?’

There were four empty beer bottles on the table and four replacement bottles. Jake took a long drink from one of the new ones.

‘I mean, it wasn’t Ozzie and Harriet in our house either. My Dad cussed me now and then, knocked me down once for not minding … hell, my Mom slapped me once. I was
seventeen
and came home stinking drunk, wine all over my shirt. But I deserved it when I got it, I suppose. Nobody beat me, starved me, ignored me. My folks, God bless’em, sure wouldn’t have one of us put away in an institution just because he was sick.’

‘I know – it’s just so damn sad what they’re doing to Sarah, Jake.’

Jake looked moodily at his beer and asked, ‘This kind of hysteria you say she’s got? What is that exactly? I mean does she start screaming and throwing things around, stuff like that?’

‘No, it’s not that kind of hysteria, Jake. The proper term, I guess, is voluntary mutism. She just won’t talk. Or can’t talk because of something that happened to her in her past.’

‘Weird,’ Jake said.

‘Her doctor told me that if she would ever talk, probably something could be done to release her on her own say-so. I’m not sure if that’s true or how that would work, but.…’ Don paused, looking toward the bar. A greasy-looking kid in a brown leather jacket was seated next to Eric Tucker now. They had their heads together, deep in private
conversation
.

‘Do you know who that guy is, Jake?’ Don asked, and Jake turned his head to glance that way.

‘The guy in the leather jacket? Yeah, I know him. His name is Randy Cohan. He’s nothing but a cheap punk. He makes his living on the street, one way or the other. I don’t know the other guy.’

‘He’s Sarah’s brother.’

‘I thought he was the guy in the alley?’

‘No, this is the other one – Eric,’ Don told him.

‘You mean the one who…?’

‘Yeah. That one,’ Don said.

‘It looks like he got beat up pretty good,’ Jake commented.

‘Yes. I think his father did that to him today.’

‘Swell family,’ Jake said grimly. ‘And they think
Sarah’s
the one who needs a psychiatrist?’

‘Yeah.’ Don brooded briefly. He lifted his eyes to his friend, ‘Damn it, Jake! Tomorrow they’ll all be gone their
separate ways and Sarah will be locked up in that stinking hospital. Christ, I wish she would speak. Just a few lousy words!’

‘Do I have this straight?’ Jake asked. ‘The doctor told you that they would have to release her then … unless they found out that she
is
loony?’

Don flinched at the word, but said, ‘That’s what he told me.’

Jake watched him meditatively. He hesitated before he spoke:

‘Would that really matter, Don? Would it really do her any good? I mean, would her family take her back? Would it be any good for Sarah, living with any one of them?’

‘A lot of questions, Jake,’ Don answered smiling crookedly. He had already thought about these things. Sarah couldn’t take care of herself, everyone knew that. Maybe in time, but no one knew. Aunt Trish had already told him that she would not take Sarah on again. Eric? Ridiculous and unhealthy. Raymond. Ditto. Their mother
could not
take care of Sarah or herself. That left Edward and he just wasn’t the sympathetic type. The lawyer had been the one to have his sister committed in the first place. Besides, as Trish had pointed out, it would cost a lot of money for anyone who took her in – initially at least – as she re-entered the world. Assuming she ever could return from wherever it was she lived now.

‘The girl needs love,’ Jake decided. ‘Lots of it. She’s never had any, not really. They kept her like a pet until everyone got tired of having to take care of her.’

Like Poppsy.

‘It’s love,’ Jake went on, his words now slightly slurred. ‘I don’t claim to know much, but I know a person needs it to be whole, healthy.’ He lifted a bushy eyebrow and asked Don, ‘Do you love Sarah, Don?’

‘I don’t even know her,’ Don replied.

‘It seems to me that you know her better than her family. You might love her a lot more than any of them.’

Don was briefly sobered by Jake’s observations. He had convinced himself that he was trying to help Sarah out of some … what had Trish called it? ‘Vague charitable impulse.’

‘I don’t believe in love at first sight, all that nonsense. You have to get to know someone first, don’t you?’

‘Love at first sight.’ Jake leaned back in his chair and loosened his belt a notch. ‘I don’t know, Don. I believe these things happen, for sure. Did you ever see a little kid’s eyes when you bring a little fuzzy puppy home?’ He held up a hand, fending off Don’s response. ‘Yes, I know – that’s different. But Janice, my wife.…’

‘I never knew you were married, Jake.’

‘I don’t talk about her much. It must be the beer … she died in a boating accident. I only had her for three years. But, buddy, I met her at a dance down at the old VFW hall. I saw her all the way across the dance floor. There was no transition from being strangers to becoming lovers. We saw each other and that was that – before I even knew her name. Tell me, Don, how many people know each other when they start going out? Hell, after they’re married!
Sure, you want to know all about them, but it’s the
learning
that keeps the spark of interest alive. I think a lot of times people split up because they have found out everything there is to know and things just got too damned
uninteresting
.’

‘I never pegged you for a romantic, Jake.’

‘Ah, hell … like I said, maybe it’s the beer. But none of my cheap advice helps you out.’

‘No, unfortunately.’

Jake was silent, making bottle rings on the table. An Olympic symbol and then a chain. Finally he lifted his dark eyes.

‘What if she did start talking, Don? What then?’

‘What do you mean?’

‘I mean, what could you do for her anyway? Assuming she was willing to let you give it a try.’

‘I’m not following you,’ Don confessed.

‘OK.’ Jake sighed and hunched forward, leaning his elbows against the tabletop.

‘What I mean is – don’t take this wrong, Don – you’re not exactly a rich man.’

‘No.’ So Aunt Trish had reminded him.

‘I mean, you’d have a struggle taking care of any woman, let alone a special one like Sarah.’ Jake looked
uncomfortable
as if he thought he might have said too much.

Don nodded. It was true. His rent was overdue right now. Outside of some canned beans, two packages of franks, and one brown banana, his refrigerator was empty. He didn’t own a car. As much as he enjoyed freelance photography, the
pay was small and sporadic. He wasn’t even sure that he was much good at his chosen profession. Maybe he just didn’t have the eye for it. He had long ago given up the conceit that he was another Ansel Adams.

A scuffling sound at the bar drew his attention. Eric Tucker had got to his feet in one ragged motion, tipping over his bar stool. Randy Cohan, grinning, held him up by the elbow as he stood the stool up again, apologized to the barmaid, and the two men, arm in arm, walked toward the door.

‘Wow,’ Jake said. ‘Just wait until that fresh air hits him!’

Don watched the door close behind the two men and then returned his thoughts to Sarah.

‘I have been doing some thinking, Jake. This is all real tenuous, you understand.’

‘Sure. Go ahead,’ the fisherman encouraged.

‘I mean.…’

‘I think I know what you mean, but let’s have it.’

‘It’s just this – I’ve been thinking about making some kind of career move for a long time. Things aren’t going all that great for me, as you know.’

‘I know. What sort of move did you have in mind, Don?’

‘I don’t know just yet. I was thinking maybe portrait photography. If I could scrape up enough to lease a shop. One with living quarters above.’

‘This is a small town, Don,’ Jake said with sympathy. ‘How many people really would want their portraits taken?’

‘It wouldn’t have to be here necessarily, Jake. I could relocate – Coos Bay, maybe, or Eureka. It wouldn’t matter
to me. That way I would still have my days off to shoot the pictures I want to take. Follow my art,’ he added ruefully.

‘How come you haven’t done it before?’ Jake wondered.

‘I don’t know. Inertia. Not wanting to give up a dream. We all hate to admit we’ve come up short, don’t we?’

‘Sure. But maybe we’re all bound to come up short, Don. Maybe the human animal is never satisfied that enough has been accomplished. I remember once reading that a guy named Leonardo da Vinci prayed on his deathbed for God to forgive him for not having used all the talents He had given him. And I wonder if he had had genuine
happiness
in his life or if it was just an endless striving for … more.’

They finished their beer in silence. The bar crowd was thinning out. No one was putting money in the jukebox any more. The girl behind the bar looked tired and impatient to go wherever she was going.

Don lifted his eyes to the bearded fisherman. ‘
You
, Jake,’ he asked, ‘what would you do?’

Jake grinned. ‘Old buddy, you have already pegged me. I’m an old-fashioned romantic. Myself – I’d give it a try. I would try to set things up for Sarah. And if she doesn’t get out, ever … well, you can always say you gave it your best effort and go back to doing what makes you happy. If I wanted the girl, I’d make that sacrifice for her.’

‘It would be a long haul, Jake. I’m bottom-feeding right now. I’m flat broke – no, I’m a little below that. Sarah might never get better. Even more frightening, she could get worse in that place while I’m scrambling around trying to do
something to help her out. Just deteriorate until there’s nothing left of Sarah at all but a wisp of memory.’

‘It could happen,’ Jake was forced to agree.

‘But you, Jake – you’d still try?’

‘If I loved her, yes, I would. You’ll at least always know that you tried, Don. At least you did try.’ He looked around the bar, briefly considering getting two more beers, deciding that they had had enough. ‘For now, Don, sleep on it. That’s a major, major decision you’re trying to make. Throw my top-of-the-head advice away if you want. Maybe I’m high. Maybe I’m thinking of my departed Janice tonight.’

Jake stood up, his chair legs scraping against the wooden floor. ‘You’re the only one who knows if you love that girl enough to give up your freedom for her.’

They walked up to the bar to settle the bill. Jake slipped the barmaid an extra two dollars and they went out into the foggy night.

‘Tell me again,’ Randy Cohan said, ‘how much money you got, Eric?’ He was still supporting Eric Tucker, who swayed on his arm. Eric had already heaved his guts up in an alley on their way to find a friend of Cohan’s.

‘Eighteen-thousand, three-hundred and seventeen dollars,’ Eric said, his voice very slurred. His mouth tasted of puke. He looked up at Cohan wondering who in the hell this guy was. His new friend. He couldn’t remember meeting him, but he remembered enough to know where they were now going.

To get a gun so that he could blow Raymond Tucker’s face away.

Cohan grinned and slapped his new acquaintance on the shoulder. His new pal. Cohan was a red-haired, stoop-
shouldered
man of 24. He made his living as Jake had told Don March, in any way he could. He peddled weed; now and then did a little burglary, petty theft, and some pick-pocketing. Just whatever happened to come up where there was
something
to be made – and there was something to be made from this puke-face. Cohan kept grinning as they continued on their stumbling way.

Eric’s head was swimming crazily. He had to stop and lean against the cinder block wall of a building to try to clear it. Cars hissed past through the spun wool of the damp fog, their headlights radiating weirdly through it

He remembered the figure $18,317 quite clearly. He didn’t have it in his pocket right now, but that was what his share of the property sale came to. In the morning, he could pick up his check at Dennison’s office. He could almost
visualize
the number typed across the face of a cashier’s check.

It wasn’t enough money to pay for what had been done to him, not nearly. A million dollars wouldn’t have been, but Eric accepted it as fair. It didn’t matter anyway, he wasn’t going to need any money for a while. Tonight, he intended to blow Raymond Tucker’s head off. Eric did not fool himself into thinking he could get away with it; they’d arrest him and throw him in prison for a long time.

Let them. He didn’t care. That money would accrue a hell of a lot of interest in twenty years or so. He would emerge from prison a rich man walking into a new world; a brighter world.

A world without Raymond Tucker in it.

He didn’t know exactly when the idea had first come to him. In the bar, he supposed, as he sat brooding, trying to kill the pain in his eye, the ache of the loose teeth in his jaw. Was it whisky-thinking he was indulging in? No – he
realized
that he had always wanted Raymond dead. Always! As far back as he could remember. He was a grown man now. Raymond had no right to do what he had done today and still Eric had not raised his fists to protect himself. Some ghost of respect or remnant of childhood fears had prevented him from doing that.

But later on, after the beating, the idea had taken on stunning clarity, impetus.

‘Are you all right now, Eric?’ the redhead asked, peering at him. The fog had made a soppy mess of Randy Cohan’s carefully greased hair. Dark tentacles hung across his eyes. ‘Can you make it now?’

‘Sure,’ Eric said, and they staggered on, their arms locked together. Eric still couldn’t remember where he had met this guy. All he remembered was that he was suddenly buying Randy drinks and they had started talking about getting a gun.

‘You wouldn’t know where to get one, would you?’ Eric had asked.