Inn, walked across the street to the biggest real estate office on the main street in Stockbridge, and showed the picture of Patty Giacomin to a thick woman in a pair of green slacks and a pink turtleneck.
"Oh, I know her," the woman said. "That's Mrs. Richards. I just sold them a house."
The house she had sold them was about half a mile from town on Overlook
Hill. They had purchased the house for cash under the name Mr. and Mrs.
Beaumont Richards.
"Beaumont Richards," I said as we drove up the hill. "Who'd ever guess it was him?"
Paul was silent. His face seemed to have lost color, and he swallowed with difficulty. Pearl had her head forward between us, and Paul was absently scratching her ear.
I parked on the gravel at the edge of the roadway in front of the address we'd been given. It was a recently built Cape, with the unlandscaped raw look that newly built houses have. This one looked even rawer because it was isolated, set into the woods, away from any neighbors. The roadway that we parked on continued into the woods. As if, come spring, an optimistic builder would put up some more houses for spec. Running up behind the house were some wheel ruts which appeared to do service as a driveway. The ruts had probably been created by the builders' heavy equipment and would be smoothed out and re-sodded in spring. To the left the hill sloped down toward the town, and you could see the Red Lion Inn, which dominated the minimalist center. Behind the house the woods ran, as best I could tell, all the way to the Hudson River.
"How to do this?" I said.
"I think I should go in," Paul said.
"Yeah, except Beaumont is bound to be very nervous about callers," I said.
"I'm his paramour's son," Paul said. "That's got to count for something."
"He's scared," I said. "That counts for everything in most people, if they're scared enough."
"I have to do this," Paul said. "I can't have you bring me in to see her.
I am a grown man. She has to see me that way. She has to accept that that I matter."
He swallowed. He had the look of bottled tension that he'd had when I first met him.
I nodded. "I'll be here," I said.
Paul made an attempt at a smile, gave me a little thumbs-up gesture, and got out of the car. Pearl immediately came into the front seat and sat where Paul had sat.
I watched him walk up the curving flagstone pathway toward number 12. It had a colonial blue door. The siding was clapboard stained a maple tone.
There were diamond panes in the windows. There was no lawn yet, but someone had put in a couple of evergreen
shrubs on each side of the front door and a quiet breeze gently tossed the tips of their branches. I wished I could do this for him. It cost him so much and would cost me so little. But it would cost him much more if I did it for him. He stopped on the front steps and, after a moment, rang the doorbell.
The door opened and I could see Paul speak, and pause, and then go in. The door closed behind him. I waited. Pearl stiffened and shifted in the seat as a squirrel darted across the gravel road and into the yellowing woods that had yielded only slightly to the house. I rubbed her neck and watched the front door.
"Life is often very hard on kids, Pearl," I said.
Pearl's attention remained fixed on the squirrel.
There was no sound. And no movement beyond that which the breeze caused to stir in the forest. Beaumont had chosen a bad place to hide. It seemed remote but its remoteness increased his danger.He'd have been better off in a city among a million people. Out here you could fire off cannon and no one would hear.
Pearl's head shifted and her body stiffened. The front door opened and
Patty Giacomin came down the front walk with a welcoming look on her face.
She still looked good, very trim and neat, with her blonde hair and dark eyes. She was dressed in some kind of Lord Taylor farmgirl outfit, long skirt over big boots, an ivory-colored, oversized, cableknit sweater, and her hair caught back with a colorful headband.
I rolled the window down on the passenger side halfway so I could speak to her. Pearl, who was standing on all fours now in the front seat, thrust her head through the opening, her tail wagging.
"Well, hello, you beautiful thing," Patty said and put a hand out for Pearl to sniff. "And you, my friend," she said to me. "How can you sit out in the car like a stranger? Come in, meet Rich, see my new house. It's been too long."
I nodded and smiled. "Nice to see you, Patty," I said and got out of the driver's side. Pearl turned toward me and looked disappointed when I closed the door on her. I went around the car and Patty Giacomin gave me her cheek to kiss.
"Come on in," she said again. "And bring this lovely dog. I couldn't bear it if she had to sit out here all alone, while we're all up in the house visiting."
I opened the passenger door and Pearl jumped out and dashed around in front of the house withher nose to the ground until she found a spot where she could squat. Which she did. I stuck her leash in my hip pocket.