Heaven and Earth
Page 35

Helen Remington had started her long journey pedaling a blue six-speed. He imagined her riding up and down the hills. She’d been wearing a wig—some reports said red, some brown. He was going with the brunette. She wouldn’t have wanted to be flashy. He spent more than two weeks tracking, backtracking, rapping into the wall of false leads until he hit his first jackpot inDallas , where Nell Channing had rented a cheap motel room with kitchenette and taken a job as a short-order cook in a greasy spoon.
Her name was Lidamae—it said so on the name plate pinned to the candy-pink bodice of her uniform. She’d been waiting tables for thirty years and figured she’d poured enough cups of coffee to fill the whole of the damnGulf of Mexico . She’d been married twice and had kicked both sons of bitches out on their lazy asses.
She had a cat named Snowball, a tenth-grade education, and aTexas twang so sharp you could’ve cut diamonds with it.
She didn’t mind getting off her dogs for a few minutes to talk to a reporter. And didn’t scruple to refuse the offer of a twenty for her time and trouble. Lidamae tucked the bill just where you’d suppose she would. Into the generous cup of her bra.
The sheer perfection of her, the overbleached hair teased into an enormous cascade, the blowzy body, the staggering blue of the eyeshadow that covered her lids almost to her eyebrows, had Harding wondering who might play her in the film based on his book.
“I told Tidas—Tidas, he runs the kitchen back there—I told Tidas there was something odd about that girl. Something spooky.”
“What do you mean by ‘spooky’?”
“A look in the eye. A rabbit look. Scared of her own shadow. Always watching the door, too. ’Course, I knew right off she was on the run.” With a satisfied nod, Lidamae took a pack of Camels out of her apron pocket. “Women, we sense these things about our own kind. My second husband tried to kick me around a time or two.” She dragged in smoke like breath. “Hah. It was his ass got kicked. A man raises his hand to me, he’d better have a good health policy, ’cause he’s gonna spend some quality time in a medical-type facility.”
“Did you ever ask her about it?”
“Wouldn’t say boo to a goose, that one.” Lidamae snorted, sending a dragon-stream of smoke out of her nostrils. “Kept to herself. Did her work, you can’t say different, and never was anything but polite. A lady, I said to Tidas, that Nell’s a lady. Got quality written all over her. Thin as a rail, her hair all whacked off any which way and dyed mongrel brown. Didn’t matter, quality shows.”
She took another drag, then wagged the cigarette. “I wasn’t the least bit surprised when I saw the news report. Recognized her right off, too, even though she was all polished up and blond in the picture they showed. I said to Suzanne—Suzanne and me were working the lunch shift—I said, ‘Suzanne, look at that on the TV set.’ That one there, over the counter,” she added for Harding’s benefit. “I said, ‘That’s little Nell who worked here a few weeks last year.’ Coulda knocked Suzanne over with a feather, but me, I wasn’t surprised.”
“How long did she work here?”
“Right about three weeks. Then one day, she just doesn’t show for her shift. Didn’t see hide nor hair of her again till that news report on the TV. Tidas was pissed, let me tell you. That girl could cook.”
“Did anyone ever come looking for her? Pay more attention to her than seemed natural?”
“Nope. Hardly ever poked her head out of the kitchen anyway.”
“Do you think Tidas would let me see her employment records?”
Lidamae took a last drag on her cigarette, studying Harding through the curtain of blue smoke. “Don’t hurt to ask, does it?”
It cost him another twenty to look at the paperwork, but it gave him the exact date of Nell’s departure. Armed with that, and a reasonable assessment of her finances, Harding scouted out the bus station. He tracked her toEl Paso , nearly lost her, but then dug up the man who’d sold her a car. He followed her trail by day, read, over and over, every news article, interview, statement, and commentary that had been written since Remington’s arrest.
She’d worked in diners, hotel restaurants, coffee shops, rarely staying in one spot longer than three weeks during the first six months of flight. There seemed little rhyme and no reason to her route. And that, Harding thought, had been the point. She would head south, then east, then overlap her own tracks and drive north again. Even so, she’d always, eventually, headed east again. Though he didn’t put much credence in Lidamae’s opinion of her own insight, he did find a thread of consistency throughout his interviews with employers and coworkers.
Nell Channing was a lady.
How much more she was, he’d have to judge for himself. He couldn’t wait to meet her face-to-face. But before he did, he wanted more. He wanted Evan Remington’s story.
Unaware that her life was currently under a microscope, Nell took advantage of her day off and a break in the weather. The February thaw offered a teasing hint of spring, with warmth that required no more than a light jacket.
She took Lucy for a walk on the beach and toyed with the idea of going into the village to buy something foolish and unnecessary. The fact that she could toy with the idea was one of her daily miracles. For now, she was content with the beach, the sea, and the big black dog. While Lucy entertained herself chasing gulls, Nell sat on the sand and watched the waves.
“Lucky for you I’m in a good mood, or I’d have to write you up for having that dog off the leash.”
Nell glanced over as Ripley dropped down beside her. “You’d have to write yourself up, too. I didn’t see a leash when the two of you went for a run this morning.”
“I used the invisible leash this morning.” Ripley wrapped her arms around her updrawn knees. “God, what a day. I could take a few hundred of these.”
“I know. I couldn’t stay in the house. My to-do list is as long as your arm, but I ran away.”
“It’ll keep.”
“It’s going to.”
When Nell continued to stare at her, Ripley tipped down her sunglasses, peered over them. “What?”
“Nothing. You look . . . pleased with yourself,” Nell decided. “I haven’t seen much of you in the past couple weeks, but whenever I have you’ve looked quite smug.”