What sort of grandfather would Chris be without a few family photos?
It was easy to buy a USB cord at CVS and use it to attach my phone to the photo-printing machine at the back of the store. I made prints of photographs I already have, the ones I surreptitiously snapped with my phone when I was standing in front of the Bishops’ bookshelf during our second session.
It took a bit of cropping and filtering, but I ended up with reasonable facsimiles of the black-and-white wedding shot of Marissa and Matthew surrounded by their wedding party, as well as an image of Chris, Matthew, and Bennett—three generations of Bishop men—standing in front of a Christmas tree.
I maneuver the prints into the clear plastic inserts in the wallet, then check my appearance in my rearview mirror. I’m still in the jeans and black jacket I wore to meet Marissa in the park and Matthew on his boat, but I’ve tied my hair back in a knot and I’m wearing glasses with nonprescription lenses and cherry-red frames, which I also purchased at the drugstore, for $14.99. If someone were to describe the way I look right now, the glasses would be the main thing they’d remember.
I step out of my car and walk toward the restaurant, bending the wallet back and forth in my hands so that it seems more worn. It’s still a little too new looking, so just before I reach the door of the Whistler, I drop it on the sidewalk and grind my heel into it.
I scoop it back up, pull open the door, and blink as my eyes adjust to the dimly lit restaurant. It’s a dive—old dark-wood furniture, dust motes swirling through the few beams of sunshine streaming in through a dirty window, with the smell of old beer spills and even older cooking grease.
A half dozen or so customers are at tables and booths. Two servers stand behind the long wood bar, talking. One is a youngish-looking man with a mustache, and the other a middle-aged woman with bleached-blond hair.
Women typically have better memories for faces than men, so I claim an empty barstool closer to the female server.
“Get you something, hon?” she asks.
“As long as I’m here, I’d love a Michelob. But I actually came by for another reason.”
She flips off the cap and puts the bottle in front of me, then narrows her eyes. “I’m trying to figure out if you’re the type who wants a glass.”
By way of answer, I tilt up my beer and sip from the bottle.
“So what’s the other reason?”
The bartender with the mustache is listening to us, but I don’t blame him. Not much else is happening in this run-down place.
I lay the wallet next to my beer.
“I found this in the parking lot of a CVS. I wanted to return it, but there’s no ID. The only thing I could find was a receipt from here.” I pull out the receipt and hand it to her.
“Let me see.” She pulls up the reading glasses on a chain around her neck and peers through them. “Yeah, that’s us. Hmm, two Cluny and sodas.”
“There’s a few family photos, too. Maybe you’ll recognize him.… Or her. The owner of the wallet.”
I tap on the wallet, indicating the plastic sleeve with the photos.
“Fancy,” she mutters as she looks at the wedding portrait. Then she flips to the one in front of the Christmas tree. “Son of a gun. That’s Chris Bishop. Now don’t we look all festive!”
I take another sip of beer, trying to strike the right affect. Interested, but not overly. “So you know him?”
“Oh yeah. He comes in here pretty often. I’ve probably served him hundreds of Clunys over the years.”
So it was him. I bet Chris followed me from the parking lot of the park to the boat; I left immediately after my phone call to Matthew, and Chris’s LeSabre was still in the lot. I was so intent on moving forward toward Matthew’s surprising destination, I never looked back.
Maybe Chris was tracking me before that, too—from the Cub Scout gathering on the grass to my car. He acted strangely when he introduced himself. If he recognized me from the Post article or other interviews I’ve done, why wouldn’t he simply ask?
Perhaps his curiosity was piqued when he saw me interacting with Marissa. He could rightly assume she’s one of my clients.
But there’s no universe in which a normal reaction to that discovery would result in his following me. Why not simply ask his daughter-in-law?
“Thanks for dropping this off. I’ll get it back to him.” The server flips back to the wedding photo, then notices the cash. “I should pocket this to make up for all the one-dollar tips he’s left over the years.”