Part 21 (1/2)
How many others had Steve Haston contacted, and why would he disband the committee?
Before I could give the news to Stephanie, a voice on the station intercom paged me to the watch office. I was barely out the door when my girls ambushed me in the corridor.
”Daddy, Daddy. Look what we got,” Britney said, leaping into my arms. She had a stuffed animal, a grisly-looking creature that could only have been designed by someone on PCP. Allyson held a similar toy at arm's length, and I knew it wouldn't be long before Allyson's distaste would poison Britney's feelings for her own gift.
”Where'd you get these?”
”Grandma and Grandpa,” Allyson said. ”Grandma said you forgot to pick them up at the airport. Grandpa's mad, but he's pretending he's not. Grandma already pinched my face. She says I look like Natalie Wood in Miracle on 34th Street Miracle on 34th Street.”
”You do look a little like Natalie Wood.”
”Really is he mad?” Britney asked, squirming out of my arms. ”I'm gonna go see.”
”Don't say anything, Brit!” Allyson called out as her sister disappeared. ”Blabbermouth.”
I said, ”I forgot all about them.”
”They're so boring.”
”They love you, even if they are a little-”
”Don't say they're different, Dad, 'cause they're a lot more than different. I didn't want to see them last summer, and now it's already this this summer, and here they are again. OmiG.o.d. My life is just draaaaaggging on. If it weren't for Stephanie and Morgan, this would be the longest of the nine summers I've had to live through. I suppose they're going to stay at our house again? Daddy. Can't you tell them we're contagious or something?” summer, and here they are again. OmiG.o.d. My life is just draaaaaggging on. If it weren't for Stephanie and Morgan, this would be the longest of the nine summers I've had to live through. I suppose they're going to stay at our house again? Daddy. Can't you tell them we're contagious or something?”
”They've come a long way to see you.”
”Grampa smells like BO.”
”Let me put it this way: We can pick our friends. We can't pick our relatives.”
”You picked Mommy.”
”Allyson, you're getting too smart for me.”
Wesley Tindale was retired from Alcoa Aluminum, and Lillian from retail sales. They had only the two grandchildren and doted on them, insisted on speaking to them on the phone once a week, an ongoing ordeal both girls had to be coached through. The Tindales saw Allyson and Britney as their second chance. They'd had two daughters themselves, my ex, Lorie, and Elaine. Elaine was doing drugs somewhere in New York, and Lorie, also involved in drugs, was wanted by the law. It was hard to tell which of Lorie's offenses was worse in their minds, the drugs, the forged checks, or the lesbianism. It drove me to distraction that they blamed Lorie's conversion to h.o.m.os.e.xuality on me.
Wesley was almost as tall as I was, saturnine, invariably in baggy slacks and today sandals with black dress socks worn so thin his toenails showed through. His long sideburns were left over from the seventies-or was it the sixties?-and his eyebrows were so overgrown, both my girls were frightened by them. He had severe dark eyes that were always a little blurry, yet he spoke in a commanding voice, his best feature.
Coming from a family of teetotalers, it had taken me years to realize Wesley was drinking before breakfast. He did most of his driving drunk, did most everything drunk. Lillian, on the other hand, was arguably the worst driver in the Western Hemisphere, drunk or not. The irony was that, with over a century of driving between the two of them, neither had a mark on their driving records. Go figure.
At less than five feet, Lillian was short enough she looked like a joke walking alongside Wesley, her torso round as a ball. Today she wore madras pants and a large loose-fitting blouse in a color I couldn't describe-a garish purple-mauve-yellow ensemble. They both wore straw hats. Each year it was a different fun fun gimmick. Last year for the entire week they'd worn matching bow ties with battery-powered blinking lights. gimmick. Last year for the entire week they'd worn matching bow ties with battery-powered blinking lights.
Britney and I found the blinking lights oddly amusing, but Allyson had not been happy about the extra attention while out in public.
”Sorry about the airport,” I said, shaking hands with Wesley, holding it until he gave up. He trotted out the marine-sergeant death grip every time we met. ”One of the men in the department died this week, so I've had a lot on my mind.”
Putting on a false joviality that Karrie, always fascinated with the specter of bad relatives, was quickly picking up on, they mentioned the airport fiasco several more times, rea.s.suring me after each reference that being old and abandoned in a strange airport hadn't bothered them at all, that they'd rather enjoyed the long line at the car rental place, and that being independent with their own vehicle would be a pleasant change from having me cart them around as in years past, that neither of them minded getting lost in Federal Way, and that they were finally learning how to read their two-dollar map.
I would be reminded of the two-dollar map again and again the way a sailor's wife reminded him he'd gotten the clap from a two-dollar wh.o.r.e. Had Lorie been here, the guilt factor would have whittled her down to nothing, but I had no time for it.
”Look,” I said as Mayor Haston walked through the front door and greeted Karrie. ”I understand you want to see the girls today. Fine. Take them out to lunch. Go to Snoqualmie Falls, whatever. Just have them back in time for dinner at five. We're going to eat at my place. Can you be there?”
”Of course we'll be there,” Wesley said. ”That's why we came.”
”Just the three of us?” Lillian asked. Her table count always left out Allyson and Britney, a fact that Allyson never failed to take note of.
”If you bring the girls back, that'll make five. I'll be bringing a friend. So there'll be six.”
The room filled with an uncomfortable silence as Wes and Lillian realized I was stepping out of my usual pattern-that I was taking charge.
After half a minute Lillian said, ”Well, girls. I suppose we'd better shake a leg. We wouldn't want to be in anyone's way, would we?”
They were halfway out the door when I turned to Haston, his face still stained from yesterday's explosion, bandages on his chin and across the bridge of his nose.
”Did you cancel the committee?” I asked. ”Because if you did, I'll have channel five out here. They talk to me, I guarantee you're going to end up looking like a jacka.s.s.”
Ben Arden and Ian Hjorth must have heard the word jacka.s.s jacka.s.s, because they were both in the room in a flash. Wes and Lillian were listening in the doorway, my curious daughters behind them.
”I formed the committee. I can disband it.”
”G.o.d, Haston. Your only child was in the back of that truck. I don't know if she has any symptoms yet, but if she does she's on the seven-day timer just like . . .” I remembered my girls in the doorway and stopped myself. Motioning for my in-laws to leave, I continued. ”Why did you call the committee off?”
Until that moment, this had been a contest of wills between the regulars in the department and Haston. That it hadn't occurred to him he might be endangering his own daughter's life amazed everyone in the room, him included, because when he began speaking he stuttered. Karrie stared at her feet.
”Do you?” he asked, turning to his daughter. ”Have any symptoms?”
”I can't believe you canceled everything, Father. Why did you do that?”
”You have symptoms?”
”I want to know what difference it makes. Jim has them.”
”He does?”
”Yes.”
The room grew silent. My in-laws and daughters had left. I hadn't been aware that Karrie knew, but the look on Ian's face told me everyone in the station was aware of my predicament.
”I made a few calls,” Haston said. ”That was all there was to it. Some of those people must have misinterpreted what I was trying to tell them.”
”Oh, get off it, Dad.”
The room was quiet for a few moments. ”You going to call them back?” I asked.
Haston turned to me. ”I know about you and my daughter.”
”What?”
”I know you've been taking advantage of her. She's twenty-two years old, for cripes sake.”