No Time for Goodbye

  One time, couple of miles west of Battle Creek, he loses his nerve, steers back onto the road, but at that high speed, when the front right tire catches the ridge where shoulder meets pavement, he loses control. The car veers across two lanes, right into the path of a semi, plows into the median, coming to a stop in high grass.

  What usually makes him change his mind is Jeremy. His son. He’s afraid to leave him alone with her.

  He has to make a stop in Milford one time. On the prowl for some new clients, new businesses to supply.

  He goes into a drugstore to buy a candy bar, and there is a woman behind the counter. Wearing a little name tag that says “Patricia.”

  She is beautiful. Reddish hair.

  She seems so nice. So genuine.

  There’s something about her eyes. A gentleness. A kindness. After spending the last few years trying so hard not to look into Enid’s dark eyes, to now see a pair so beautiful, he feels light-headed.

  He takes a long time to buy that chocolate bar. Makes small talk about the weather, how only a couple of days earlier he’d been in Chicago, how he’s on the road so much of the time. And then he says something before he’s even aware he’s said it. “Would you like to have some lunch?”

  Patricia smiles, says if he wants to come back in thirty minutes, she gets an hour off.

  For that half hour, as he wanders the shops of Milford’s downtown, he asks himself what the hell he’s doing. He’s married. He has a wife and a son and a house and a job.

  But none of it adds up to a life. That’s what he wants. A life.

  Patricia tells him over a tuna sandwich in a nearby coffee shop that she doesn’t go to lunch with men she’s just met, but there’s something about him that intrigues her.

  “What’s that?” he asks.

  “I think I know your secret,” she says. “I get a feeling about people, and I got a feeling about you.”

  Good God. Is it that obvious? Can she divine that he’s married? Is she a mind reader? Even though when he first met her, he’d been wearing gloves, and now has his wedding ring tucked into his pocket?

  “What sort of feeling?” he asks.

  “You seem troubled to me. Is that why you’re driving back and forth across the country? Are you looking for something?”

  “It’s just my job,” he says.

  And Patricia smiles. “I wonder. If it’s led you here, to Milford, maybe it’s for a reason. Maybe you’re driving all over the country because you’re supposed to find something. I’m not saying it’s me. But something.”

  But it is her. He’s sure of it.

  He tells her his name is Clayton Bigge. It’s like he has the idea before he actually knows he has the idea. Maybe, at first, he was just thinking about having an affair, and having a fake name, that wasn’t a bad plan, even for an affair.

  For the next few months, if his sales trips only take him as far south as Torrington, he drives the extra distance south to Milford to see Patricia.

  She adores him. She makes him feel important. She makes him feel as though he has some worth.

  Driving back on the New York Thruway, he considers the logistics.

  The company was rejigging some of the sales routes. He could get the one that ran between Hartford and Buffalo. Drop going to Chicago. That way, at each end of the run…

  And there’s the money question.

  But Clayton’s doing well. He’s already been taking extraordinary measures to conceal from Enid how much money he has tucked away. It would never matter how much he made, it would never be enough for her. She’d always belittle him. And she’d always spend it. So he might as well tuck some aside.

  It might be enough, he thinks. Just enough, for a second household.

  How wonderful it will be, for at least half the time, to be happy.

  Patricia says yes when he asks her to marry him. Her father had already died, but her mother seems happy enough. Her sister Tess, though, she never warms to him. It’s as though she knows there’s something off about him, but she can’t put her finger on just what it is. He knows she doesn’t trust him, that she never will, and he is especially careful around her. And he knows that Tess has told Patricia how she feels, but Patricia loves him, genuinely loves him, and always defends him.

  When he and Patricia go to buy rings, he maneuvers her into picking a wedding band for him identical to the one he has in his pocket. Later, he returns it to the store, gets his money back, and is able to wear the one ring he already has, all the time. He fraudulently fills out applications for a variety of municipal and state licenses, everything from a driver’s license to a library card—it’s a lot less tricky then than in a post-9/11 world—so he can bamboozle the marriage license office when the time comes.

  He must deceive Patricia, but he tries to be good to her. At least when he is home.

  She gives him two children. A boy first. They name him Todd. And then, a couple of years later, a baby girl they christen Cynthia.

  It is an astonishing juggling act.

  A family in Connecticut. A family in upstate New York. Back and forth between the two.

  When he’s Clayton Bigge, he can’t stop thinking about when he will have to return to being Clayton Sloan. And when he’s Clayton Sloan, he can’t stop thinking about hitting the road again so he can become Clayton Bigge.

  Being Sloan is easier. At least that’s his honest-to-God name. He doesn’t have to worry so much about identification. His license, his papers, they’re legitimate.

  But when he’s in Milford, when he’s Clayton Bigge, husband to Patricia, father of Todd and Cynthia, he’s always on his guard. Doing the speed limit. Making sure there’s money in the meter. He doesn’t want anyone running a check on his license plate. Every time he drives to Connecticut, he pulls off the road someplace secluded, takes off the orangey-yellow New York plates, puts a stolen blue Connecticut plate on the back of the car in its place. Puts the New York plates back on when he goes to Youngstown. Has to always be thinking, watch out where he makes long-distance calls from, make sure he doesn’t buy something as Clayton Sloan and give his Milford address without thinking.

  Always uses cash. No paper trail.

  Everything about his life is false. His first marriage is built on a lie told by Enid. His second marriage is founded on lies he’s told to Patricia. But despite all the falsehoods, all the duplicity, has he managed to find any true happiness, were there any moments when he—

  “I have to pee,” Clayton said, stopping his story.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “I gotta take a leak. Unless you want me to go right here in the car.”

  We’d recently passed a sign promising a service center any time now. “There’s something coming up,” I said. “How you feeling?”

  “Not so good,” he said. He coughed a few times. “I need some water. And I could use some more Tylenols.”

  I hadn’t thought to bring any bottles of water, given how quickly we had left his house. We’d been making pretty good time on the thruway. It was nearly four in the morning and we were closing in on Albany. The Honda, as it turned out, needed gas, so a pit stop was a good idea all around.

  I helped Clayton shuffle into the men’s room, waited for him to do his business at the urinal, assisted him back to the car. The short trip drained him. “You stay here and I’ll get some water,” I said.

  I bought a six-pack of water, ran it back out to the car, cracked open the plastic cap on one of them and handed it to Clayton. He took a long drink, then took the four Tylenols I’d put into his hand and downed them one at a time. Then I drove over to the gas pumps and filled up, using almost all of the cash in my wallet. I was worried about using a credit card, fearful that police had figured out who’d taken Clayton out of the hospital, and that they’d be watching for any transactions by my credit card.

  As I got back into the car, I thought that maybe it was time to let Rona Wedmore know what was going on. I felt, the more Clayton talked, t
he closer I was getting to the truth that would, once and for all, end Wedmore’s suspicions about Cynthia. I dug around in the front pocket of my jeans and found the card she’d given me during her surprise visit to the house the previous morning, before I’d gone looking for Vince Fleming.

  There was an office and cell number, but not a home phone. Chances were she’d be asleep this time of the night, but I was betting she kept her cell next to the bed, and that it was on 24/7.

  I started the car, pulled away from the pumps, but pulled over to the side for a minute.

  “What are you doing?” Clayton asked.

  “I’m just going to make a couple of calls.”

  Before I tried Wedmore, however, I wanted to give Cynthia another try. I called her cell, tried home. No luck.

  I took some comfort from that, strangely enough. If I didn’t know where she was, then there was no way Jeremy Sloan or his mother could, either. Disappearing with Grace turned out to be, at this moment, the smartest thing Cynthia could have done.

  But I still needed to know where she was. That she was okay. That Grace was okay.

  I thought about calling Rolly, but figured that if he knew anything, he would have called, and I didn’t want to use the phone any more than I had to. The battery didn’t run down that quickly with the phone on, but once you started talking on it, the power drained in a hurry.

  I entered Detective Rona Wedmore’s cell phone number. She answered on the fourth ring.

  “Wedmore,” she said. Trying very hard to sound awake and alert, although it came out more like “Wed. More.”

  “It’s Terry Archer,” I said.

  “Mr. Archer,” she said, already sounding more focused. “What is it?” “I’m going to tell you a few things very quickly. I’m on a dying cell. You need to be on the lookout for my wife. A man named Jeremy Sloan, and his mother, Enid Sloan, are heading to Connecticut, from the Buffalo area. I think they intend to find Cynthia and kill her. Cynthia’s father is alive. I’m bringing him back with me. If you find Cynthia and Grace, hold on to them, don’t let them out of your sight until I get back.”

  I had expected a “What?” or, at the very least, “Huh?” But instead, I got, “Where are you?”

  “Along the New York Thruway, coming back from Youngstown. You know Vince Fleming, right? You said you did.”

  “Yes.”

  “I left him in a house in Youngstown, north of Buffalo. He was trying to help me. He was shot by Enid Sloan.”

  “This isn’t making any sense,” Wedmore said.

  “No shit. Just look for her, okay?”

  “What about this Jeremy Sloan, and his mother? What are they driving?”

  “A brown…”

  “Impala,” Clayton whispered. “Chevy Impala.”

  “A brown Chevy Impala,” I said. To Clayton, I said, “Plate?” He shook his head. “I don’t have a plate number.”

  “Are you coming back here?” Wedmore asked.

  “Yes. In a few hours. Just look for her. I’ve already got my principal, Rolly Carruthers, looking for her, too.”

  “Tell me what—”

  “Gotta go,” I said, then folded the phone shut and slipped it into my jacket. I pulled the automatic transmission back to Drive and got back onto the thruway.

  “So,” I said, taking us back to where Clayton had left off before we got off the highway. “Were there moments? When you were happy?”

  Clayton takes himself back again.

  If there are moments of happiness, they only ever happen when he is Clayton Bigge. He loves being a father to Todd and Cynthia. As best he can tell, they love him in return, maybe even look up to him. They seem to respect him. They aren’t being taught, each and every day, that he’s worthless. Doesn’t mean they always do as they’re told, but what kids do?

  Sometimes, at night in bed, Patricia will say to him, “You seem someplace else. You get this look, like you’re not here. And you look sad.”

  And he takes her in his arms and he says to her, “This is the only place I want to be.” It isn’t a lie. He’s never said anything more truthful. There were times when he wants to tell her, because he doesn’t want his life with her to be a lie. He doesn’t like having that other life.

  Because that’s what life with Enid and Jeremy has become. That’s the other life. Even though it’s the one he started with, even though it’s the one where he can use his real name, show his real license to a police officer if he’s pulled over, it’s the life he can’t bear to return to, week after week, month after month, year after year.

  But in some strange way, he gets used to it. Used to the stories, used to the juggling, used to coming up with fanciful tales to explain why he has to be away on holidays. If he’s in Youngstown on December 25, he sneaks off to a pay phone, weighted down with change, so he can call Patricia and wish her and the kids a merry Christmas.

  One time, in Youngstown, he found a private spot in the house, sat down, and let the tears come. Just a short cry, enough to ease the sadness, take the pressure off. But Enid heard him, slipped into the room, sat down next to him on the bed.

  He wiped the tears from his cheeks, pulled himself together.

  Enid rested a hand on his shoulder. “Don’t be a baby,” she said.

  Looking back, of course, life in Milford was not always idyllic. Todd came down with pneumonia when he was ten. Came through that okay. And Cynthia, once she was in her teens, she started to be a handful. Rebellious. Hanging out with the wrong crowd at times. Experimenting with things she was too young for, like booze and God knows what else.

  It fell to him to be the disciplinarian. Patricia, she was always more patient, more understanding. “She’ll get through this,” she’d tell him. “She’s a good kid. We just have to be there for her.”

  It was just that, when Clayton was in Milford, he wanted life to be perfect. Often it came close to being that way.

  But then he would have to get back in the car, pretend to head off on business, and make the drive to Youngstown.

  From the beginning, he wondered how long he could keep it up.

  There were times when the bridge abutments looked like a solution again.

  Sometimes he’d wake up in the morning and wonder where he was today. Who he was today.

  He’d make mistakes.

  Enid had written him out a grocery list once, he’d driven down to Lewiston to pick up a few things. A week later, Patricia was doing the laundry, comes into the kitchen with the list in her hand, says, “What’s this? I found it in your pants pocket. Not my handwriting.”

  Enid’s shopping list.

  Clayton’s heart was in his mouth. His mind raced. He said, “I found that in the cart the other day, must have been the last person’s list. I thought it was kind of funny, comparing what we get to what other people buy, so I saved it.”

  Patricia glanced at the list. “Whoever they are, they like shredded wheat same as you.”

  “Yeah,” he said, smiling. “Well, I didn’t figure they were making all those millions of boxes of it just for me.”

  There evidently was at least one time when he put a clipping from a Youngstown area newspaper, a picture of his son with the basketball team, into the wrong drawer. He clipped it because, no matter how hard Enid worked to turn Jeremy against him, he still loved the boy. He saw himself in Jeremy, just as he did in Todd. It was amazing how much Todd, as he grew up, looked like Jeremy at similar stages. To look at Jeremy and hate him was to hate Todd, and he couldn’t possibly do that.

  So at the end of one very long day, after a very long drive, Clayton Bigge of Milford emptied his pockets and tossed a clipping of his Youngstown son’s basketball team into the drawer of his bedside table. He kept the clipping because he was proud of the boy, even though he’d been poisoned against him.

  Never noticed it was the wrong drawer. In the wrong house, in the wrong town, in the wrong state.

  He made a mistake like that in Youngstown. For the longest
time, he didn’t even know what it was. Another clipping, maybe. A shopping list written out by Patricia.

  Turned out to have been a phone bill for the address in Milford. In Patricia’s name.

  It caught Enid’s attention.

  It raised her suspicions.

  But it wasn’t like Enid to come straight out and ask what it was about. Enid would conduct her own little investigation first. Watch for other signs. Start collecting evidence. Build a case.

  And when she thought she had enough, she decided to take a trip of her own the next time her husband Clayton went out of town. One day she drove to Milford, Connecticut. This was back, of course, before she ended up in the wheelchair. When she was mobile.

  She arranged for someone to look after Jeremy for a couple of days. “Going to join my husband on the road this time,” she said. In separate cars.

  “Which brings us,” Clayton said, sitting next to me, parched and taking another sip from his water bottle, “to the night in question.”

  45

  The first part of the story I knew from Cynthia. How she ignored her curfew. Told her parents she was at Pam’s house. How Clayton went to look for her, found her in the car with Vince Fleming, brought her home.

  “She was furious,” Clayton said. “Told us she wished we were dead. Stormed up to her room, never heard another peep out of her. She was drunk. God knows what she’d had to drink. Must have fallen asleep instantly. She never should have been hanging around with a guy like Vince Fleming. His father was nothing but a common gangster.”

  “I know,” I said, my hands on the wheel, driving on through the night.

  “So like I said, it was quite a row. Todd, sometimes he enjoyed it when his sister got into trouble, you know how kids can be. But not this time. It was all pretty ugly. Just before I’d come back with Cynthia, he’d been asking me or Patricia to take him out to get a sheet of bristol board or something. Like every other kid in the world, he’d left some project to the very last minute, needed a sheet of this stuff for some presentation. It was already late, we didn’t know where the hell we could get something like that, but Patricia, she remembered they sold it at the drugstore, the one that was open twenty-four hours, so she said she’d take him over to get it.”