The Man From Primrose Lane Part 18

He'd returned his rental to the Enterprise in State College and paid the fee to have them ship it back to Akron. There were few perks to being silly rich, he'd come to realize, but convenience was one of them.

Somehow, being in Katy's car, in the pa.s.sive pa.s.senger seat, he felt closer to her, closer even than during the seven times they'd had s.e.x since she had arrived in Bellefonte. Sitting in the pa.s.senger seat of a woman's car-that's intimacy.

At a stoplight in State College, she had leaned over and licked his lips. He had felt so dizzy he thought he might faint.

"So what now?" she asked, pulling onto I-80 West.

"We can take this all the way home."

"I mean what next, what next? What next with you?"

"Oh." He looked out the window, at the foothills of the Appalachians sweeping east in an impressionistic blur of green and gold. "Well," he said, "not much, really. I just, you know, have to find a better suspect in the attempted murder of the Man from Primrose Lane so that I'm not put on trial. To do that, I have to, somehow, figure out who this 'Arbogast' guy is. The only guy we can a.s.sume had motive to kill the Man from Primrose Lane, if your memory is reliable, and memory so often is not, is the man who approached you outside that toy store in Coventry, only to be intercepted by the Man from Primrose Lane. Logically, that man was this 'Arbogast.' But logic is on vacation these days. You and Detective Sackett both believe that you are somehow connected to the abduction of my wife's sister, Elaine, that perhaps the man who attempted to abduct you was the same man who took Elaine, and tried to take Elizabeth, only to be interrupted by ... who? The Man from Primrose Lane again? I'd also like to know why my wife's fingerprints were on that guy's bed. Also, Tanner has swimming lessons Wednesday. So, there's that."

"Do you still think the solution is elegantly simple?"

"It always is," he said.

"Well, we at least have a last name to start with."

"What do you mean?"

"McGuffin," she said. "That old man said the guy he made the IDs for was named McGuffin."

David laughed. "That's not a real name, either," he said.

"How do you know?"

"It's a bad writer's device. A McGuffin. It's the object that everyone is after in a caper, or in a crime story or mystery. It's something the plot centers around but which, in itself, is not of any real importance. It's like the Maltese Falcon. Or the Arc of the Covenant, in Raiders. Or what's in Marcellus Wallace's briefcase in Pulp Fiction."

"So no leads, then, on the Man from Primrose Lane's true ident.i.ty?"

"Actually, the best clue to who he was is still in Akron. His house."

At a rest stop east of Pittsburgh, one of those transient depots full of tchotchkes and fatty foods, they stopped to eat and to call home.

"Dad!" yelled Tanner. "I painted Shadow green!"

Shadow was the cat.

"All of him?"

"No. A little. It was an a.s.sident. He has a green spot now."

"Good."

"Are you coming home?"

"On my way, buddy."

"Yay! Oh, Papa wants to say something." There was a loud rumble as Tanner transferred the phone to David's father.

"'Lo?"

"Hi, Dad."

"Everything work out?"

"It did."

"Good. Hey. There's, uh ... there's stuff on the news out here. It started on the blogs. That girl, Cindy. She has pictures up on her site with you and a young woman."

"Great."

"Did you know that the woman you're with in the pictures is the fiancee of Ralph Rhodes?"

"I'm guessing that's Joe Rhodes's son."

"Right-o."

"Huh," he said. Yes, he thought, Ralph Rhodes certainly is a toolbox. What did Katy see in that guy?

"Well, the newspapers picked it up and figured out who the woman was."

"What do you mean?"

"That she's the one the Man from Primrose Lane was stalking."

"Uh-huh?"

"Today's headline from the Beacon: 'Famous Writer Key Suspect in Death of Mystery Man.' And below that: 'Dates Woman the Victim Stalked.'"

"Nice."

"Are you in trouble, David?"

"No, Pop. It's a misunderstanding. Build you up, tear you down. That's the media's job. I have Synenberger on it. Nothing to worry about."

"Are you sure?"

"Mostly."

"Well, come on home."

"Be there in two hours."

Katy was closing her cell phone as David approached her in the colossal lobby. The look on her face said everything he needed to know.

"f.u.c.k," she said.

"Yeah."

"I mean, f.u.c.k! None of this would have happened if I hadn't gone out with you," she said. "That b.i.t.c.h got a picture of us in your car, dropping me off. I'm the one who cheated on my fiance. I'm the one who that creep from Primrose Lane was obsessed with."

"Why didn't you tell me who your boyfriend was?"

Katy shrugged. "I don't care about that stuff."

"His father is the leader of the Summit County Republican Party, owns the biggest lumber business in Ohio. Powerful family."

"I know."

"I'll give you this," he said. "You're certainly not boring."

"Ditto."

"Shall we, then?"

Katy tossed him the keys. "Your turn."

From the website ClevelandChic.com, posted October 18, 2012: YOUNG BOOKSLINGER CAN'T GET E'NEFF OF LOCAL WRITER Exclusive by ClevelandChic Who is this mystery woman smooching up to the ear of Akron's famous true crime writer? According to neighbors, the YOUNG woman, seen in this picture with her tongue in David Neff's ear, is a twenty-two-year-old Barnes & n.o.ble employee named "Katy." The young woman herself could not be reached for comment. Neither could Neff, for that matter. It appears the two may have escaped to a lovers' retreat, where they can canoodle far from the gaze of ClevelandChic's cameras.

Neff, who was widowed in 2008 when his wife committed suicide by driving a car into a convenience store the day she was to be released from the hospital after the birth of their boy, Tanner, has remained in self-imposed isolation since the tragedy. Is this a sign that Neff is back in the singles scene? Or did Katy work her way into his heart through correspondence of some kind? Neff is easily reachable through Facebook, where Katy is one of his "friends."

Full disclosure: Yours truly worked with Neff for a spell at the now-defunct Independent. It is true we have our own history. While I thought we were friends, Neff stabbed me in the back and made up stories about me to the editor, eventually leading to my termination. He's got a lot of fans, but ClevelandChic is not one. Take it from me, Katy, this guy's a skeez.

Twenty-two-year-olds, David? Really?

UPDATE: Whiskey-Tango-Foxtrot! "Katy" is Katy Keenan, the same Katy who was the focus of the Man from Primrose Lane's secret obsession. She's also married engaged to Rhodes Lumber heir apparent Ralph Rhodes. Ouch! What a social climber. Looks like Neff has met a kindred soul.

UPDATE 2: Holy twist, Batman! The Beacon Journal just revealed that Neff is suspect #1 in the "attempted" murder of MFPL. As they say on Drudge, label this "developing."

By early evening, David was home with Tanner. There was another card from Cindy in the door. She had written We should really talk! on the back. Cindy had also left a voice mail on his machine. There were messages from Phil McIntyre at the Beacon and Damian Gomez at the Plain Dealer, as well. He figured it wouldn't be long before one of the television stations came knocking.

They ate a quick supper-mac 'n' cheese and hot dogs. Afterward, Tanner escaped to the living room to watch Wow! Wow! Wubbzy! while David cleaned up. As he reached for the refrigerator door to put the leftovers away, he noticed the picture of Elizabeth as a child, rolled up on the couch, hanging on the side, and stopped abruptly.

He'd felt grief over Elizabeth's death, as much grief as the Rivertin would allow. What he felt building inside him now, at the sight of his wife for the first time since kicking the drug, was something new. It was a cascading of madness, as if a great gate inside himself had opened and the stored sadness of several years was rushing out to overwhelm his senses.

He felt the loss of her, the missingness of having her nearby, the aloneness she left behind.

Elizabeth, he thought. Why did you have to go away? Why couldn't you stay with me? With us?

It was impossible to tell, later, if the last brain storm was triggered by all this new emotion, or vice versa. It enveloped David before he recognized it for what it was. One moment he was standing in the kitchen, staring at Elizabeth's photograph and the next ...

... he was jogging next to her, through the zigzagging dirt paths that wound between giant boulders inside Nelson Ledges Park-a place she had liked to go when she was training for a marathon.

"Keep up, old man," she said.

"Wait," he heard himself say. "Just a minute. I need to catch my breath."

"Can't!" she called, pulling ahead of him. "I have to keep pace."

He watched her disappear behind a thirty-foot-tall rock left behind by a glacier ten thousand years ago. He smelled her sweat in the breeze and he came to a rough stop and bent over, gasping for air.

She's gone, he thought.

But then she was back, jogging in place, with a hand on his back. He stood up again and she paused momentarily to kiss him gently. Inside his memory, David felt his heart break.

"Just a little farther, David," she said, a crooked smile full of teeth. "I love you. But you have to keep up. Come on!"

She pulled his arm and they were jogging again. But as they turned the corner David ...

... came back to himself, more easily than with previous flashbacks. In fact, he was still standing, still holding a Tupperware container of macaroni. He felt better, though he remained keenly aware of Elizabeth's absence for the rest of the night.

In order to stave off further attacks, he decided to keep himself busy. There were things he could do to get at more information about the Man from Primrose Lane. At the top of that list was one task he shouldn't put off any longer. He bundled up the boy and a few minutes later they were heading down Merriman in the yellow Bug. The journey, this time, was less than a mile. They parked in front of a modest Colonial and David helped his son out of the car and led him up the brick driveway. For once, Tanner didn't ask questions. He just held his father's hand tight.

Albert Beachum arrived at the door before David knocked, the overwhelming fragrance of freshly baked cookies drifting around him. He was a very tall man, at least six-five, with a scraggly red beard in need of a trim. His face was stretched and gaunt, the face of a man who had worked out-of-doors his entire life and had enjoyed every minute of it.

"h.e.l.lo?" Albert asked.

"Mr. Beachum, my name is David Neff. This is my son and partner, Tanner Neff. Our newly formed realty company would very much like to make you an offer on the house on Primrose Lane."

"And a cookie, please," added Tanner, in a businesslike tone.

Albert laughed. "Come in, then."

"I know you didn't kill him," said Albert, setting a plate of cookies on the coffee table in front of Tanner and David. His wife, "Keek," a reformed h.e.l.ls Angel, sat in a chair across from them. She didn't seem so sure.

"Thanks," said David. "I didn't. So I guess that makes two of us."

"I called the police after I saw your name in the paper and told them that. They were not interested in what I had to say."

Tanner held up a cookie the size of his head and contemplated where to begin. As he did so, he scooted closer to his father.

"What did you have to say?"

"As I'm sure you know, my family has looked after Joe King, or the Man from Primrose Lane, if you want, since at least the late seventies."

"I didn't know it went back quite that far."