Bloodline(42)

“Joan, wake up.”

That’s definitely my mother now.

Frances Harken, calling to me.

A great scraping collision happens, suddenly. I no longer know what is dream and what is reality. Am I bleeding to death after childbirth, or am I a teenager in bed, trying to steal an hour of sleep under my mother’s nose?

I hope desperately for the second, and so, finally, I open my eyes. A fuzzy, candy-pink bath mat is inches from my face. Nearby, the claw feet of a tub. The subway tile is cold against my cheek. I drag my head so I can look at my body. The front of my nightgown is a deep, lush red from my blood, crusting brown at the corners. No one is with me.

I sob.

It’s me, alone here, and the monsters have my baby.

I remember the pain, the breakneck ride to Dr. Krause’s (Who was driving? Why can’t I see that? I must remember), the injection.

This time I manage to pull myself onto the toilet and sit there for several seconds, shuddering, before I slide to the floor and ease back into darkness.





CHAPTER 29

The sun is shining brightly outside Tuck’s Cafe. Too bright. The glare is disorienting against the murky mystery surrounding me. On my way to the phone booth, I pass an older couple. They don’t look familiar, but they inspect me. Or do they? I keep walking. A woman I’m certain I’ve never seen before stares at me from across the street. When I catch the third person gawking at me, I whirl on her.

“What are you staring at?” I yell, my heart in my throat.

The woman recoils. Was she looking at me at all? I believe she was.

But I’m not sure I know anything anymore. Paulie’s scar is in the shape of a figure eight, exactly like mine, exactly like Deck’s. When he showed it to me, my mouth grew so parched that it made a clicking noise when I opened it. “None of the articles reported Paulie had that scar.”

He shrugged. “Looks like you need to dig deeper.”

That was the end of the interview.

As it stands, there’s no story there, no career-maker, despite what I felt at the beginning of my talk with Paulie. It was at best a sad story about a boy who was likely abducted by a lonely soldier looking to make some extra bucks on his train ride home from the war, a soldier who is now dead. That doesn’t feel right, though. Not now that I know about Quill Brody and Aramis Bauer being in Paulie’s class, both of them the children of Mill Street royalty.

The shared date and scar probably isn’t anything. A likely coincidence that Paulie disappeared on the same day and month as my due date, a fluke that Kris, Deck, and I all had a similar reaction to the smallpox vaccine. I bet thousands of people have that same scar. But when I asked Kris about those two boys, he couldn’t cover his reaction fast enough. Had they been involved in his abduction somehow and the Bauers and Brodys knew about it, were worried that it would catch up with them now that Paulie/Kris had returned? That’d explain why I have been given the runaround trying to research the story.

Tired of waiting for permission—to interview Becky, to talk to Paulie, to access research on my own—I storm the phone booth and slam the accordion door closed behind me. I reach for the phone book dangling on a chain and open it to the Saint Cloud section. I run my finger down the list of names and am gratified to discover Grover Tucker, the Stearns County sheriff who originally led the Paulie Aandeg investigation. I rest the book on the thin metal shelf, remove the handset, and cradle it between my ear and shoulder. I drop in my dime and dial.

I’m aware of my heightened emotions. Imagining I saw my mugger, worried my doctor sees me as a risk to my own child, speculating that two children of the Mill Street families might know something about Paulie’s initial disappearance. Tears are hot on my face. It might be paranoia, it might be due to my pregnancy, and it might be the truth. All I can do is locate the facts beneath the shifting sands.

The phone rings. And rings. I glance outside the booth. It’s lunch hour, and downtown Lilydale is busy. But for one surreal moment, I think everyone is frozen, staring at me in the booth like I’m a bug under glass. My heart knocks.

I blink.

They start moving.

“Hello?”

The voice on the other end of the line is groggy and carries the bottled sound of a very old person.

“I’m sorry, did I wake you?”

“Who is this?”

“I’m sorry,” I repeat, apologizing for the second time in a very short conversation. “My name is Joan Harken. I live in Lilydale, Minnesota.”

When he doesn’t respond, I continue. “I’m a reporter for the Lilydale Gazette. I have some questions for you about an old case. I’m wondering if we can meet.”

“You’re wondering if I have meat?”

For the first time it occurs to me that he might be senile. The articles didn’t mention his age, but he was a sheriff in 1944. I didn’t think you could attain that office at younger than forty-five. That would put him today anywhere from his seventies to his eighties. I speak even more slowly, louder. “No, I am wondering if I can take you out for a cup of coffee. I have some questions for you about a case you covered in 1944.”

A cough. “That was a long time ago. I won’t turn down company, though. I don’t leave my house much, but if you bring the doughnuts, I’ll make the coffee.”

“This is Grover Tucker? Former Stearns County sheriff?”