The Colorado Kid

4

The sun was warm, the air was cool, the breeze was sweet with salt and rich with the sound of bells and horns and lapping water. These were sounds she had come to love in only a space of weeks. The two men sat on either side of her, and although she didn’t know it, both had more or less the same thought: Age flanks beauty. And there was nothing wrong with the thought, because both of them understood their intentions were perfectly solid. They understood how good she could be at the job, and how much she wanted to learn; all that pretty greed made youwant to teach.

“So,” Vince said when they were settled, “think about those stories we told Hanratty at lunch, Steffi—theLisa Cabot, the Coast Lights, the Wandering Mormons, the Tashmore church poisonings that were never solved—and tell me what they have in common.”

“They’reall unsolved.”

“Try doin a little better, dearheart,” Dave said. “You disappoint me.”

She glanced at him and saw he wasn’t kidding. Well, thatwas pretty obvious, considering why Hanratty had blown them to lunch in the first place: theGlobe ’s eightinstallment series (maybe even ten installments, Hanratty had said, if he could find enough peculiar stories), which the editorial staff hoped to run between September and Halloween. “They’ve all been done to death?”

“That’s a little better,” Vince said, “but you’re still not breaking any new ground. Ask yourself this, youngster: why have they been done to death? Why does some New England paper drag up the Coast Lights at least once a year, along with a bunch of blurry photos taken over half a century ago? Why does some regional magazine likeYankee orCoast interview either Clayton Riggs or Ella Ferguson at least once a year, as if they were going to all at once jump up like Satan in silk britches and say something brand new?”

“I don’t know who those people are,” Stephanie said.

Vince clapped a hand to the back of his head. “Ayuh, more fool me. I keep forgettin you’re from away.”

“Should I take that as a compliment?”

“Could do; probablyshould do. Clayton Riggs and Ella Ferguson were the only two who drank the iced coffee that day at Tashmore Lake and didn’t die of it. The Ferguson woman’s all right, but Riggs is paralyzed all down the left side of his body.”

“That’s awful. And they keep interviewing them?”

“Ayuh. Fifteen years have rolled by, and I think everyone with half a brain knows that no one is ever going to be arrested for that crime—eight folks poisoned by the side of the lake, and six of em dead—but still Ferguson and Riggs show up in the press, lookin increasin’ly rickety: ‘What Happened That Day?’ and ‘The Lakeside Horror’ and…you get the idea. It’s just another story folks like to hear, like ‘Little Red Ridin Hood’ or ‘The Three Billy Goats’ Gruff.’ Question is…why?”

But Stephanie had leaped ahead. “Thereis something, isn’t there?” she said. “Some story you didn’t tell him. What is it?”

Again that look passed between them, and this time she couldn’t come even close to reading the thought that went with it. They were sitting in identical lawn chairs, Stephanie with her hands on the arms of hers. Now Dave reached over and patted one of them. “We don’t mind tellin you…do we, Vince?”

“Nah, guess not,” Vince said, and once again all those wrinkles appeared as he smiled up into the sun.

“But if you want to ride the ferry, you have to bring tea for the tillerman. Have you ever heard that one?”

“Somewhere.” She thought on one of her mom’s old record albums, up in the attic.

“Okay,” Dave said, “then answer the question. Hanratty didn’t want those stories because they’ve been written to rags. Why have they been?”

She thought about it, and once again they let her. Once again took pleasure in watching her do it.

“Well,” Stephanie said, at last, “I suppose people like stories that are good for a shiver or two on a winter night, especially if the lights are on and the fire’s nice and warm. Stories about, you know, the unknown.”

“How many unknown things per story, dear?” Vince Teague asked. His voice was soft but his eyes were sharp.

She opened her mouth to sayAs many as six, anyway, thinking about the Church Picnic Poisoner, then closed it again. Six people had died that day on the shores of Tashmore Lake, but one whopper dose of poison had killed them all and she guessed that just one hand had administered it. She didn’t know how many Coast Lights there had been, but had no doubt that folks thought of it as a single phenomenon. So—

“One?” she said, feeling like a contestant in the Final Jeopardy round. “One unknown thing per story?”

Vince pointed his finger at her, smiling more widely than ever, and Stephanie relaxed. This wasn’t real school, and these two men wouldn’t like her any less if she flubbed an answer, but she had come to want to please them in a way she had only wanted to please the very best of her high school and college teachers. The ones who were fierce in their commitments.

“The other thing is that folks have to believe in their hearts that there’s amustabeen in there someplace, and they got a damn good idea what it is,” Dave said. “Here’s thePretty Lisa, washed up on the rocks just south of Dingle Nook on Smack Island in 1926—”

“’27,” Vince said.

“All right, ’27, smartybritches, and Teodore Riponeaux is still on board, but dead as a hake, and the other five are gone, and even though there’s no sign of blood or a struggle, folks saymustabeen pirates, so now there’s stories about how they had a treasure map and found buried gold and the folks that were guarding it took the swag off them and who knows whatall else.”

“Or they got fighting among themselves,” Vince said. “That’s always been aPretty Lisa favorite. The point is, there are stories some folks tell and other folks like to hear, but Hanratty was wise enough to know his editor wouldn’t fall for such reheated hash.”

“In another ten years, maybe,” Dave said.

“Because sooner or later, everything old is new again. You might not believe that, Steffi, but it’s actually true.”

“Ido believe it,” she said, and thought: Tea for the Tillerman, was that Al Stewart or Cat Stevens?

“Then there’s the Coast Lights,” Vince said, “and I can tell you exactly what’s always made that such a favorite. There’s a picture of them—probably nothing but reflected lights from Ellsworth on the low clouds that hung together just right to make circles that looked like saucers—and below them you can see the whole Hancock Lumber Little League team looking up, all in their uniforms.”

“And one little boy pointin with his glove,” Dave said. “It’s the final touch. And people all look at it and say, ‘Why, thatmustabeen folks from outer space, droppin down for a little looksee at the Great American Pastime. But it’s still just one unknown thing, this time with interestin pictures to mull over, so people go back to it again and again.”

“But not the BostonGlobe,” Vince said, “although I sense that one might do in a pinch.”

The two men laughed comfortably, as old friends will.

“So,” Vince said, “we might know of an unexplained mystery or two—”

“I won’t stick at that,” Dave said. “We know of at least one for sure, darlin, but there isn’t a singlemustabeen about it—”

“Well…the steak,” Vince said, but he sounded doubtful.

“Oh, ayuh, but eventhat’s a mystery, wouldn’t you say?” Dave asked.

“Yah,” Vince agreed, and now he didn’t sound comfortable. Nor did he look it.

“You’re confusing me,” Stephanie said.

“Ayuh, the story of the Colorado Kid is a confusing tale, all right,” Vince said, “which is why it wouldn’t do for the BostonGlobe, don’tcha know. Too many unknowns, to begin with. Not a singlemustabeen for another.” He leaned forward, fixing her with his clear blue Yankee gaze. “You want to be a newswoman, don’t you?”

“You know I do,” Stephanie said, surprised.

“Well then, I’m going to tell you a secret almost every newspaper man and woman who’s been at it awhile knows: in real life, the number of actual stories—those with beginnings, middles, and ends—are slim and none. But if you can give your readers just one unknown thing (two at the very outside), and then kick in what Dave Bowie there calls amustabeen, your reader will tellhimself a story. Amazin, ain’t it?

“Take the Church Picnic Poisonings. No one knows who killed those folks. Whatis known is that Rhoda Parks, the Tashmore Methodist Church secretary, and William Blakee, the Methodist Churchpastor, had a brief affair six months before the poisonings. Blakee was married, and he broke it off. Are you with me?”

“Yes,” Stephanie said.

“What’salso known is that Rhoda Parks was despondent over the breakup, at least for awhile. Her sister said as much. A third thing that’s known? Both Rhoda Parks and William Blakee drank that poisoned iced coffee at the picnic and died. So what’s themustabeen? Quick as your life, Steffi.”

“Rhoda must have poisoned the coffee to kill her lover for jilting her and then drank it herself to commit suicide. The other four—plus the ones who only got sick—were whatdoyoucallit, collateral damage.”

Vince snapped his fingers. “Ayuh, that’s the story people tell themselves. The newspapers and magazines never come right out and print it because they don’t have to. They know that folks can connect the dots. What’s against it? Quick as your life again.”

But this time her life would have been forfeit, because Stephanie could come up with nothing against it. She was about to protest that she didn’t know the case well enough to say when Dave got up, approached the porch rail, looked out over the reach toward Tinnock, and remarked mildly: “Six months seems a long time to wait, doesn’t it?”

Stephanie said, “Didn’t someone once say revenge is a dish best eaten cold?”

“Ayuh,” Dave said, still perfectly mild, “but when you kill six people, that’s more than just revenge. Not sayin itcouldn’t have been that way, just that it might have been some other. Just like the Coast Lights might have been reflections on the clouds…or somethin secret the Air Force was testin that got sent up from the air base in Bangor…or who knows, maybe itwas little green men droppin in to see if the kids from Hancock Lumber could turn a double play against the ones from Tinnock Auto Body.”

“Mostly what happens is people make up a story and stick with it,” Vince said. “That’s easy enough to do as long as there’s only one unknown factor: one poisoner, one set of mystery lights, one boat run aground with most of her crew gone. But with the Colorado Kid there was nothingbut unknown factors, and hence there was no story.” He paused. “It was like a train running out of a fireplace or a bunch of horses’ heads showing up one morning in the middle of your driveway. Not that grand, but every bit as strange. And things like that…” He shook his head. “Steffi, people don’t like things like that. They don’twant things like that. A wave is a pretty thing to look at when it breaks on the beach, but too many only make you seasick.”

Stephanie looked out at the sparkling reach—plenty of waves there, but no big ones, not today—and considered this in silence.

“There’s something else,” Dave said, after a bit.

“What?” she asked.

“It’sours,” he said, and with surprising force. She thought it was almost anger. “A guy from theGlobe, a guy from away—he’d only muck it up. He wouldn’t understand.”

“Do you?” she asked.

“No,” he said, sitting down again. “Nor do I have to, dear. On the subject of the Colorado Kid I’m a little like the Virgin Mary, after she gave birth to Jesus. The Bible says something like, ‘But Mary kept silent, and pondered these things in her heart.’ Sometimes, with mysteries, that’s best.”

“But you’ll tell me?”

“Why, yes, ma’am!” He looked at her as if surprised; also—a little—as if awakening from a neardoze. “Because you’re one of us. Isn’t she, Vince?”

“Ayuh,” Vince said. “You passed that test somewhere around midsummer.”

“Did I?” Again she felt absurdly happy. “How? What test?”

Vince shook his head. “Can’t say, dear. Only know that at some point it began to seem you were all right.” He glanced at Dave, who nodded. Then he looked back at Stephanie. “All right,” he said. “The story we didn’t tell at lunch. Our very own unexplained mystery. The story of the Colorado Kid.”