The Pendleton Omens - 4. Chapter 4

Four more days. Six more inches of snow. A weekend passed. Owen still strained, not pissed, but weird. And no sign of Scoot.

“Nothing?” Sharon asked when I spoke with her on Monday.

“Nothing.”

“And I’ve talked with Jamie. Nothing there, either. And Amy’s called again. None of their friends have heard from him.”

“That’s what happens when you’ve got a deadbeat son. No job to lose.”

“He’s not a deadbeat. He makes more than I do.”

“It was a joke.”

“It wouldn’t be funny, even if he weren’t missing.”

“Wait. Hold on. Whoa. When did he get missing?”

“Well, what would you call it?”

“I don’t know. Unavailable?” She didn’t think that was funny, either.

“Well, where do you think he is?” she asked.

“Probably somewhere in Mexico. Probably in bed with some assistant director’s assistant.”

“He wouldn’t do that.”

“He’s done it before.”

“That was before Amy.”

“But not before Alissa. And Amanda. And Daina.”

“He wouldn’t go without telling us.”

“Afterwards, anyhow.”

“That only happened once. And he was in college. On a break.”

“Well, now he’s on permanent break. Wish I were that lucky. I should have chosen a better profession.”

“You didn’t have parents to support you.”

Sharon and I weren’t exactly supporting Scoot. He earned a good living as a pick-up cameraman. But that was between making movies of his own. Documentaries. Shorts. Still, he was never unwilling to take birthday presents.

“Grandma and Grandpa did that for you,” I said.

“My father never had money.”

He built houses for a living. Still does. That makes him sound rich, but every cent he makes goes into the next project. Or into equipment.

“Well, how long do I have to wait?” Sharon asked. “Until I call the police?”

“Depends how much you want to be embarrassed. And how much you want to embarrass Scoot.”

“Amy’s worried.”

“And you’re not?”

“Of course, I am.”

“Then give him a few more days. He’ll turn up. Wanna bet?”

She didn’t answer that, and I could tell she was pissed at me. But I didn’t know what to do.

“My son’s off in Mexico,” I told Rob as I hung up the phone. “My twenty-three-year-old playboy.”

“Hot girls in Mexico,” said Rob, who’d barely been out of Massachusetts.

“How much Spanish do you speak?” I asked.

“Poco.”

“Me, tambien.”

“Why?”

“Just curious. I always feel so white bread. I wonder what I’m missing.”

My family came to America in the 1700s. To Jamie and Scoot, that seemed like the Mayflower, but we were indentured servants then and still are. Civil servants. Worker bees. The only good thing is we ended up being passably blond. Reasonably tall. I’m five-eleven. And good enough looking to get by.

“You need to be careful,” Sharon said after we split. “You’ll never find anyone if you get fat.”

I think she was more worried about herself. Work always kept me in pretty good shape, but she was in good shape, too.

“What ya doing?” I asked Owen after I knocked on his door.

“Paperwork. What else?”

He was always doing budgets. He claimed the town didn’t give him enough money. They claimed he didn’t do enough with it. So he was always counting pennies.

“Got a minute?” I asked.

He glanced at the clock. “Just.”

I sat opposite his desk. “Who do we know in LA?”

That surprised him. “Why?” he wanted to know.

“Just in case.”

“Why?” he repeated,.

I told him about Scoot. He laughed. “He’s probably off getting laid.” Then he quickly looked away.

I wanted to say, “Let it go, Owen.” Instead, I laughed, too, adding, “Exactly what I told Sharon.”

“You’ve talked with her?”

“Every couple of days.”

“I can never figure that out. If Lisa booted me out, she’d never want to see me again.”

“Everyone’s different.”

He looked away again.

“Anyway, do we know anyone in LA?” I practically repeated. “If I need help with a couple of questions.”

He thought. “I’ll have to check.”

“Thanks.”

And then I waited. To see if he wanted to talk. But he went back to his numbers.

So I went to Theo’s. “Bring me a surprise,” Elena called as I pushed through the front doors.

They were getting so bad, I was thinking of using the back exit. That led to the parking lot, and it was the way I came in every morning. But it was shorter to cross Main from the front, and it hadn’t warmed past seventeen.

My job wasn’t hard. I poked around. I did my reports. I stayed on call. I guessed it was like the Army, though I’d never spent any time there. I went from goofing my way through high school to marrying Sharon to working as a cop. For a long time, there was never much danger, but with the drug gangs in Springfield, things were getting tougher. There were more break-ins and more stolen cars. Though no one got killed, outside the regular wrecks near Mount Tom.

The drug problems stayed east of us, out by UMass and the high end colleges. That’s where the market was. Waldron had the high school and the low end college – kind of bottom – , and some of those kids used drugs. I’d done some myself, but nothing serious. I’d done part of a year at UMass, too, but was never much of a student.

Sharon was. After the kids were born, she’d finished her degree. It probably took eight years – I lost count. I just paid the bills. Then she got a job in admissions at Northfield Mount Hermon and worked her way up. She liked it well enough, and it let our kids go to prep school. That was good, ‘cause I’m not sure they would have turned out as well if they’d gone to uncompetitive Waldron High. And they turned out great.