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                                            CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

                                                        The Silence

10:15 p.m.

DISSOLVE TO:

"Sorry," Reggie said. "I didn't think. I'm an idiot." A little forgiveness pumped up a grin of agreement. "Thanks for meeting me," he began, over-enunciating his words. "What did you tell your father?"

Concentrating on his mouth, she wrinkled her nose and pointed to a pillow case of laundry at her feet. Across the street, three doors west of the florist, was a Laundromat–the only business in The Plunge District with a light on.

He removed the card from his shirt pocket. "Can we go somewhere and talk?" He wiggled the card in the air. "I practiced."

She answered, "Yes," the vowel hollow and stretched.

Slowly, awkwardly, he finger-spelled, Where. He saw in her dark eyes the way she watched his face, not his fingers, and that she was pleased. And interested.

Holding her hand in front of her face, she finger-spelled in the same overly enunciated manner that he'd spoken to her. She was still too fast for him.

"I didn't get that."

She pointed at him, turned her profile; using the lamppost for a seatback, she squatted slightly and positioned her hands as if steering.

"A car?" She pointed at him. "My car? Where's my car? I...don't have one. Don't you?" She shook her head, not appearing to be upset about it. "Let's walk then."

Laundry, she signed, nodding towards the Laundromat.

Reggie knew where he wanted to end up. He paused long enough to make her think he was considering things.

At the Laundromat, a friend of Brenda's, a young college boy, was in the midst of washing a week's accumulation of dirty laundry, and reading Penthouse. He was proficient at sign-language. They weren't spelling, though. They communicated differently. Pictures, really. "White-man-speak-with-fork-ed-tongue" stuff. He managed to pick up enough to understand that her friend offered to transfer her wet clothes from the washer to the dryer when the time came, and that she'd be back later.

Outside, her Where now? expression was answered decisively. He pointed her towards The Plunge. She agreed. They turned left at the lake, strolled north along the side of the narrow, paved road. This area of the shore was covered with sand to give it a beach-like setting. Canoes were stacked on shore beside a small rental booth. Steel umbrellas disguised as round thatched roofs were planted randomly down the beach. Reggie hadn't spoken since they'd left the Laundromat.

He stopped, lightly touching Brenda's shoulder. "Let's talk here."

She shook her head. Don't talk, she signed slowly. Her warm hand took his. She led him onto the beach to the ramp leading up the lifeguard tower. The moon was still full, lighting up the sand, making it sparkle. There was no wind. The water was glass. A bird in a chubby tree a few yards away chortled, warning them to behave themselves. But Brenda couldn't hear it, could she?

"Gorgeous," he said softly before her eyes looked up into his. Her eyebrows rose inquisitively, but he knew she'd only caught the last of his lips moving. "How old are you?" he said. Responsible thinking had its place. But a bubble of guilt ballooned in his brain as he instantly thought of Jackie and recalled Lucilva's asking him if he liked "little girls."

Don't talk, Brenda spelled, sign.

He signed his question. Her tongue punctuated her smile by quickly appearing then disappearing.

Over eighteen, she signed.

How much over?

Twenty-one.

Reggie thought: There is a God.

Not understand today, she signed. You look for bus schedule. She misspelled schedule with a 'k' and left off the 'e' on the end. When he deciphered the word, he answered her.

Not bus skedul–he misspelled it for clarity's sake. I asked you if you saw the girl leave on the bus. She wrinkled her brow. The girl with me yesterday. Jackie. She nodded, her eyes squinting thoughtfully, as if reconstructing her memory a block at a time.

She talk to driver, she signed.

Of bus?

Brenda's shoulders sagged. She rolled her eyes. Tightlipped, she nodded, her eyebrows patronizingly arching. Jackie used phone.

On the–but she didn't let him finish; she pantomimed talking on a telephone and nodded. By the restroom? Impatiently, she nodded again.

We good together, she signed, leaning against the door of the lifeguard house. I am deaf. You are dumb. She laughed at her own joke. It was piercing, like a screech a balloon made when its nozzle was tweaked tight and the air released. He joined her, trying to be a good sport through his reluctance to see the joke.

What happened after? his fingers said, finding their proper places like orderly schoolchildren.

John Tooley came in back door. They talk. I think police got you in parking lot. I watch...through window bathroom. John talk to her, but she...cry. John help in car. They go.

Police car? She made a fist and jerked it twice. It meant "yes." Why did she cry? Reggie's fingers smoothly spelled each word. He was amazed at how fast he'd learned to let his fingers do the talking. He couldn't type worth a shit, but here he was conversing, albeit slowly, with a deaf person. Brenda shrugged at his question, gazed off across the lake, thought a moment. Turning back to him, her left hand spelled fear, her right hand spelled anger, then she laced her fingers together.

Afraid of police? And angry.

Shaking her head, she signed: John.  Do you know John Quinn? 

Reggie nodded, his brain movie flickered. It stuttered off. He had to stay alert. No fading in tonight. This was serious shit.

Quinn left with Jackie? Brenda shook her head "no." Tooley left with her? She nodded. Where did Quinn go?

Where?

She hesitated, thinking, then signed: Playhouse maybe.

Church house.

She explained that the theater had been an old church, and the modest, one-room house next door was the parsonage.

Nervously, she licked her upper lip. You love her?

A light dotted the blackness to the north, near a spot across from the cabins. He went down the ramp, stood in the shadow of an umbrella. His ears rang. From the silence. He'd carried on an entire conversation without speaking a word, uttering a sound. A different kind of quiet. Filled with words. With thoughts. An intelligent silence.

* * *

In the ten minute walk around the north end of the oval, somewhat odd-shaped lake, Reggie gathered from Brenda what it was like to live in a town with an off-season population of only 1800 people. It was a circulatory system of gossip and information. Even the deaf knew how to find out what was going on.

Brenda enthusiastically pursued getting to know him. She asked why he'd come to Paley, why the police thought he took the mayor's body then let him go–she'd read the newspaper account.

Intuitively, Reggie knew he had to get a better feel for what was happening in town if he was to survive the situation as it now stood. Paley's death and exhumation were linked to something more than his financial problems. Jackie's disappearance, he suspected, had something to do with either her rape or her addiction. Why he'd chosen a deaf girl to help him could only be one side of the coin. He felt the other side of his intentions the strongest. Was now the time? No. He was interested, but Jackie had to come first. And if he wasn't honest, later there'd be little chance that this silent young woman with her gripping dark eyes and sensual humor would ever consider him.

He answered Brenda's questions, resorting less to lies than omissions.

The Lakeshore Cabins came into view several yards down the road on the left. The orange VACANCY sign over the office was on. The right side of the road was shoreline. A thin peninsula jutted out into the cove. Patches of reeds grew along the edge. A twisted weeping willow moped into the water. The moon put it into silhouette, the water shimmered like blue ink. A duck skittered into the protection of the reeds.

The swimming platform, out in the middle of the cove, pitched slightly. They stood silently together at the end of the peninsula. A light breeze, cool and steady, blew across the cove. Brenda tilted back her head, breathing the clean desert air.

Reggie nudged her and asked: Want to swim? She grimaced. An image surfaced. That afternoon. When the ditz dropped him off at the cabins. Someone on the platform out there. Wearing a mask and snorkel.

The lake became choppy. The platform bobbed. He nudged Brenda and turned to head back to the road. The light from the moon was behind him. Watching his step across the shore, he stopped suddenly. A splattered path wavered in the moonlight. It led from the lake up to the pavement. He followed it. At the road he knelt down, touched his finger to a tiny puddle on the pavement, brought it to his nose, sniffed. Nothing. He touched his finger to his tongue. Water. The droplets continued across the road. Something wet had crossed the road to...where?

Brenda, looking curious, followed him. He tracked the water trail passed the office and through the first row of cabins. The trees were closer there and the moon didn't shine through.

There were no lights on in any of the cabins, and no cars were parked anywhere in the camp. He suspected that he was the only tenant. He lost the trail in the darkness. He got on his knees, felt the soft earth for moisture. Brenda tried signing. It was too dark to see her hands. He found no traces of moisture, rose and dusted his knees.

Brenda cocked her head to one side. She studied him with such seriousness that her face appeared as some abstract painting. He told her that something had come up from the lake. She suggested a coyote. He nodded as if he agreed with her. But he knew she was wrong. There were only drippings. No wet paws or footprints.

He pointed to the next aisle, took her hand and they walked towards the back of the campground to the bark-trimmed door of his one-room cabin–cabin 11. Inside, he pointed to the only chair. She sat down. He opened the tiny refrigerator in the kitchenette, grappled with the Sutter Home Chardonnay he'd bought from the little store on the east side of the lake. Finally uncorking the bottle, he felt a jolt of victory when he found it had come out intact. A wisp of air hit his face. He looked to the side and discovered the shutter-style window had blown open. He pushed them closed and flipped the tiny latch over. He poured the wine into two Dixie cups, handed the wine to her. She touched the tips of her fingers to her lips and–he wasn't sure–seemed to throw him a kiss. His surprise must have shown on his face. Brenda signed: Means thank you.

Reggie sat on the corner of the double bed, the covers still thrown off one side where he'd earlier laid and memorized the sign language alphabet.

He saluted her with his cup of wine and sipped it. Not being a drinker, the alcohol tasted stronger than the grapes. He grinned and smacked his lips.

What now? he thought. Do I talk to her about how I can find Jackie, or...or nothing. I promised her wine and conversation.

Brenda's family moved from Los Angeles to Paley in 1966–the same year she was born. Her father had been a chef at the famous Brown Derby in Hollywood. He left after an incident with a food critic from Louisiana's Cajun country. The critic had referred to Walter Doone as "The Deaf Chef" in an article that appeared in the Los Angeles Times, and then, in a grand display of stupidity, came back to the Brown Derby for seconds. Walter threw off his chef's hat, pinned the Cajun critic to the floor of the kitchen and–as her father tells it–force-fed him $86.00 worth of uncooked shrimp–shells and tails intact. He almost choked to death. Brenda laughed hysterically at her own story; Reggie joined her.

About the time the wine ran out, Reggie turned the conversation to John Quinn. Brenda didn't like him. She said he was weird. He taught at the Chapparal School, the private school Paley established in 1960 for all the children through twelfth grade. Girls refused to sit in the front row of his classes because he looked up their dresses. His father had been one of Chris's partners. Recently, he bought the old Baptist church with a partner, turned it into a theater. First show would open in September. She complained that she wanted to do props, but that he'd given the job to the town drunk, November Wallace. Reggie didn't let on he knew who he was.

The only other thing she knew about him was that he was elected last year to a two-year term on the five-member city council.

Who else is on the city council? he signed.

She named Chris Paley, who would have to be replaced. Dr. Malcolm Rendquist–Lucilva mentioned his name in reference to Chris's death certificate–and Geraldine Lee-Howard, the sister of the detective who had interrogated Reggie, and...she paused. She didn't sign the fifth name. Using her seal-bark voice, she said: "My father."

"He didn't force-feed everyone shrimp to get the votes, did he?" Reggie laughed, feeling the wine coming on.

She giggled silently, then grabbed her throat, pantomiming a deathly fit.

There was a knock on the door. Brenda watched him cross to the door and open it. Standing there was a Paley policeman. He was young, his cap pulled down low in front. He looked past Reggie at Brenda.

"Everything all right here?" he said.

"Yeah," Reggie said, glancing back at Brenda. Her eyebrows raised. Reggie signed what the cop said. She nodded.

"Got a call," the cop said, leaning in, looking around the cabin.

"About what?"

"Said an unconscious girl was seen being carried into this cabin."

Reggie stepped aside. "Does she look unconscious to you?" He signed to Brenda. She giggled, shaking her head.

"Isn't she the Doone girl?"

Reggie nodded. "We're just talking."

Cop nodded. "Okay. Sorry for buttin' in. Have a good night."

After he'd left, Brenda stood up, dropped her cup in the trash, and thanked him. He offered to walk her back to the Laundromat. She said she could get back on her own. He pleaded with her. There's a body snatcher out there somewhere, he signed.

Dead bodies, she replied, grinning, not living bodies.

The words startled her. Her eyes grew big. She wavered in her stance. The wine was affecting her, too.

O.K., she agreed. The narrow door behind her got her attention. She signed that the wine didn't stay with her very long and excused herself to use the toilet.

The door closed on the bathroom. Reggie put the empty wine bottle on the sink, put the cheese wheel–now a cheese sliver–they'd eaten back into the refrigerator.

The bathroom door flew open, violently banging the wall, jarring the cabin. Brenda's face was terror-stricken. She gasped, her mouth opening in a silent scream that sent ice up his back. The terror on her face flashed by him as she threw herself into the wall to get away from whatever was inside there. The bathroom door swung back, blocking his view. Brenda shook. Her hands and fingers fumbled with her lips, trying to grab words, yank them out. All she could do was point, backing away, sliding her body down the wall.

Her fear clutched him–he felt it as she flew by him–and his hands shook. Slowly, holding his breath, Reggie positioned himself off-center, leaning to the right. He peeked around the door. Nothing. He pushed the door open. Swallowing fear, moving in slow motion, his heart pumping everything it had, he stepped inside.

The toilet seat was up. The water was running in the sink. Water splashed the mirror. The rug was twisted like a pinwheel in the middle of the floor.

The shower curtain was partially open. He pulled it back. The blood in his body froze.

Submerged in the tub of dirty brown water, eyes and mouth gaping black holes, was the gray, nude body of Jackie Weldon.

Freeze-frame.