Free Lullaby Town (1992) by Robert - Elvis Cole 03 Crais Page A

wouldn't have to sit outside Milt's Barber Stylings with two sweaters under the G-2 and still be cold. Of course, maybe Karen Lloyd wasn't Karen Shipley. Maybe they just looked alike and May Erdich was wrong. Stranger things have been known to happen. All I had to do was hang around and wait for Karen Lloyd and ferret out the truth.
    Portrait of the Big City Detective sitting on a smalltown bench, ferreting. In the cold. People passed on the sidewalk, and when they did they nodded and smiled and said hello. I said hello back to them. They didn't look as cold as me, but perhaps that was my imagination. You get used to the weather where you live. When I was in Ranger School in the Army, they sent us to northern Canada to learn to ski and to climb ice and to live in the snow with very few clothes. We got used to it. Then they sent us to Vietnam. That's the Army.
    A little bit after two-thirty kids started drifting past with books, and at five minutes before three a dark-haired boy in a plaid Timberland jacket came pumping down the street on a beat-up red Schwinn mountain bike. Toby Nelsen. He was horse-faced and gangly, with a wide butt and narrow shoulders, just like his father. His rear end was up and his head was down and he whipped the bike across the sidewalk and skidded to a stop by the front door of the bank just as a dark green Chrysler LeBaron pulled into the parking lot. He was laughing. A woman who might've been Karen Shipley got out of the Chrysler. A dozen years older than the Karen Shipley in the videotape, wearing a tailored rust-colored top coat and heels and tortoiseshell sunglasses. Together. Her hair was short and set off her heart-shaped face nicely and she stood straight and confident.
    She didn't bounce or wiggle. Toby raised his hands over his head and yelled, "I beatcha by a mile!" and she said something and the boy laughed again and they went into the bank. I crossed the street after them. Elvis Cole, Master Detective. We Always Get Our Mom.
    When I got into the bank, Karen Shipley was seated in one of the back offices, talking on the phone, and the boy was at a little coffee table, writing in a spiral notebook. I went to the end of the tellers' counter again and waved at Joyce Steuben. "I'm back."
    Joyce Steuben looked around at Karen Shipley, still on the phone. "She's on a call now. Can I tell her who wants to see her?"
    "Elvis Cole."
    "Would you like to have a seat?"
    "Sure."
    I walked back to the little round table and sat down across from the boy. He was writing in the workbook with a yellow pencil and didn't look up. Fractions. He was big for twelve, but his face was smooth and unlined and young. He looked exactly like his father, and I wondered if he knew that. I said, "You Toby Lloyd?"
    He looked up and smiled. 'Yeah. Hi." He looked healthy and happy and normal.
    "You're Karen's son?"
    "Yeah. You know my mom?"
    "I'm here to see her. I saw you guys racing down the street. You were really flying."
    His smile flashed a yard wide. "I really creamed her today. Usually she wins."
    Karen Shipley said, "Mr. Cole? May I help you?" She was standing in the little passage at the end of the tellers' counter.
    I got up and went over and shook her hand. The handshake was firm and dry and poised, and she lookeda t me with a clear confidence that she could meet my every banking need. No wedding ring. Up close, and with the sunglasses off, you saw that she was the woman in the video, yet not It was the face, yet not the same face. As if she had stepped into the transmogrifier with Calvin and Hobbes and had been changed. Her voice was lower and there was a light network of lines around her eyes and she looked better now than she had then, the way most women do as they move into their thirties. I said, "I hope so. I'm going to be moving to the area, and I'd like to discuss financing for the purchase of a home."
    She opened the gate and gave me a warm, professional smile. "Why don't we go back to my office and talk