Free Second Chance by Jonathan Valin

it. just the
thing to drowse over.
    11
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    I didn't get much sleep, maybe three hours. Enough to
leave me logy on the flight back to Cincinnati. In a way it was a
blessing to be that tired. I didn't have enough energy to get scared
about the plane ride.
    We landed at Cincinnati International around nine,
having lost an hour on the way back. After a cup of coffee at the
airport cafeteria I picked up the car in short-term parking and drove
to town.
    It was a mild, blue December morning. A bit of snow
from the previous day's storm still laced the hillsides along the
expressway, in the crannies that the sun hadn't yet touched. It would
melt within the hour. The day was that warm, like false spring.
    I stopped at the office first—to phone the State
Patrol and Al Foster at CPD. The grey Volare hadn't been spotted,
although Al had managed to get a Kentucky plate number and
registration. The car was registered to Hedda Pearson. The address
she'd given was 1245 Hidden Fork Road, in Ft. Thomas, Kentucky. There
was a phone number on the registration.
    I dialed the number and got the manager at The
Bluegrass Motel and Motor Court. The name Bluegrass Motel rang a
bell, but it wasn't until after we'd begun talking that I remembered
that the last of Ethan's postcards was addressed from the place.
      The manager, a man named Wilson, was
officiously polite in the bow-and-scrape tradition of southern
hospitality. I asked him if Ethan Pearson had checked in or out, and
he said neither. The Pearsons had left town, but their room was paid
up through the end of the month and he expected them back soon. I
told him who I was, gave him my phone number, and asked him to call
immediately if Ethan did come back. I made it sound important, so
Wilson would feel
important. He said he would
surely call.
    I called the Pearsons next—to see if they'd heard
from their wandering children. Louise Pearson answered the phone.
    "We haven't heard a word, Mr. Stoner." She
sounded exhausted, but then she and her husband had had a rough
night. "Phil's worked himself into quite a state. This business
about the police . . . it would help if you could come out and talk
to him. Give him a sense that he's participating in the process and
not just sitting back and letting it happen around him. It's the
feeling of helplessness that's getting to him—getting to all of us.
It . . . well, it stirs up bad memories."
    I'd read about those memories the night before. Up to
that moment it hadn't hit me that Pearson had been down this road
before—waiting for the police to discover what had happened to
someone he loved, someone self-destructively crazy. The woman didn't
make the connection explicit, but the change in her tone of voice—the
change from the backbiting bitterness of the previous day to genuine
concern for her husband—was itself telling.
    "All right," I told her. "I can make
it out there in about an hour."
    "Bless you," she said.
    There were several Mercedeses parked in the Pearson
driveway, when I pulled up around ten-thirty. Two of them had
physician's plates. The other one had a bag from Saks in the
backseat. I walked around to the front of the house and knocked on
the door.
    A smart-looking woman with snow-white hair answered.
She was in her sixties, immaculately dressed in a Chanel suit and
pearls.
    "Yes? What can I do for you?" she said
coolly.
    "My name is Stoner. I'm here to see Dr.
Pearson."
    Her blue eyes lost their "No Vendors" look.
"You're the detective, aren't you?"
    " Yes."
    "I'm Cora Pearson," she said, holding out
her hand and withdrawing it before I could shake with her. "I'm
Philip's mother. Please come in."
    I followed her down the hall to the grey sitting
room. The woman walked as if she were balancing a book on her head,
which was probably the way she'd been taught. Louise Pearson was
sitting in one of the red armchairs by the fireplace. She smiled
familiarly when she saw me come