In the Shadow of Death, Comfort

On a Saturday morning in January, Ginny Macomber says goodbye to her father. Meanwhile, there's an Elvis sighting in West Lebanon, and Kate Wood and her family vanish from their winter home.

Chapter Six

She stands in the chapel's doorway on a gray, dead-of-winter morning dressed in black, extending her hands to the mourners as they arrive at the Ricker Funeral Home in Woodsville.

"Thank you for coming."

Ginny Macomber motions the people into the chapel, inviting them to look at the family photo album set up on a table at the front of the room.

"Please, sit where you'd like," she says.

A man in his 40s, wearing a leather Harley-Davidson jacket and hair pulled back in a ponytail, chooses a seat at the end of a middle row. Some people are at a loss for words, but Ginny quickly puts them at ease.

"So, how you doing?"

It is the same instinctively friendly manner she uses to greet customers at Lou's Restaurant in Hanover. If this were any other Saturday morning, that is where she would be -- waiting tables.

Sensing that everything is in place, Ginny walks to the front of the chapel. She stops in front of the open casket, alone. She reaches inside and strokes her father's hand. She runs her fingers up the sleeve of his checkered flannel shirt.

The six-paragraph obituary in the previous day's newspaper recorded that Richard Macomber had been a chef for 35 years at several Upper Valley restaurants, most recently at the Lake Morey Inn in Fairlee.

He was 58 years old.

Ginny turns away from the casket and takes a seat in the front row with her two brothers and sister. Just before the service begins, she squeezes the hand of her 8-year-old daughter, Briana, brushing the girl's fingers with a kiss.

During the 50-minute memorial service, the Rev. Elizabeth Davis of Woodsville United Methodist Church tells a story about one of the last times she visited Richard, who lived alone in an apartment close to the town's high school. Struggling with emphysema, he had been in and out of the hospital for several months.

"During the last couple of months it was becoming apparent that Richard could no longer care for himself," the minister begins. "That bothered Richard. He didn't want to be a burden on anyone."

She recalls Richard asking her, "Why am I still here?"

Before she could answer, Davis tells the 50 mourners, there was a knock on the door. A 9-year-old boy who lived in the neighborhood had stopped, as he did every couple of days, to take out Richard's garbage. It was clear the boy enjoyed the chance to help Ginny's dad.

"There's your answer, Richard," the minister said after the boy left. "That little boy is why you are still here."

As other relatives and friends file out of the chapel, Ginny lingers in front of her father's casket. She rubs the back of his hand until she can find the strength to say goodbye.

THE FUNERAL HOME'S PARKING LOT is nearly empty by the time Ginny walks outdoors. The sun is struggling to break through the clouds. She looks across parking lot to the snow-covered baseball field of Woodsville High School. Drink Coca-Cola, the diamond's scoreboard says.

The old brick building next to the field is where Ginny went to school. Woodsville High. Home of the Engineers. Class of '82.

She had been accepted at Hesser College, a two-year school in southern New Hampshire, and planned to become a travel agent. Two weeks before graduation, she started dating Brad, a Woodsville High alum, five years her senior. He had just finished his stint in the Navy.

Ginny fell instantly in love. College could wait, she told herself. Eighteen years later, the young woman who wanted to become a travel agent is still waiting to take her first airplane ride.

Outside the funeral home, Ginny draws the collar of her coat closer to her neck, bracing against the cold. Unfortunately, her day is not done yet. There is still the post-funeral gathering of family and friends at her mother's house. At least Mike will be there.

In the last couple of weeks, during the final stage of her father's illness, Mike Mann has been her anchor. He is a ruggedly built man in his mid-30s with a slow gait, brownish beard and easy smile.

They met at Lou's in the fall.

Mike, who has his own electrical contracting business in Fairlee, had stopped for breakfast with one of his employees, whose wife works at the restaurant. As they were walking to the restaurant, Mike noticed a woman putting change into a parking meter.

"The next woman I go out with is going to be a tall, skinny blonde," he said to his work partner. "Like that one, right there."

Later, over his eggs and Lou's homemade hash, he saw her again, this time with an order pad in hand.

Their mutual friends encouraged Ginny and Mike to get together. Both were hesitant.

Mike was in the middle of a divorce and was skittish about starting another relationship so soon. Ginny was ambivalent, too. Never married, she'd had only three serious relationships in her life and had come to the conclusion that she likes her independence. She had lived with Briana's father, Bob, for 10 years, splitting up when their daughter was 4.

At their friends' prodding, Ginny and Mike finally agreed to meet for dinner.

Immediately, they had a lot to talk about. Each had a daughter in the third grade. Both came from working-class roots. Ginny didn't even mind when Mike talked about deer hunting, a passion of his since growing up in West Fairlee and one that he had passed on to his 11-year-old son.

Both could tell early on that the relationship had potential.

After Christmas, Mike went out West on a hunting trip. Before leaving, he handed Ginny a stack of letters in sealed envelopes with instructions to open one of them every night when she came home from work. I haven't even left yet, he wrote, and already I miss your snoring.

THE MORNING AFTER HER FATHER'S FUNERAL, Ginny is scheduled to be at Lou's by 6:30.

She has spent most of the night awake, thinking about her father and how he died too young. She thought about the pack of cigarettes she smokes each day. She thought about her daughter.

Lifting herself out of bed before dawn that Sunday morning, she walks over to the mirror. The skin below her eyes is puffy and cast in dark circles.

A few minutes after 6, she calls the restaurant.

"I just can't do it today," she says.

IF HE COULD, ELVIS WOULD LEAVE THE BUILDING.

He would not even bother to change out of his white, bell-bottom jump suit with gold glitter on the sleeves and a zipper to his navel. He would just dash for the parking lot and be safely inside his Lebanon apartment in seven or eight minutes, tops.

But on the other side of the runway curtain, a crowd of nearly 400, mostly young women and their mothers, has squeezed into the dining room of West Lebanon's Fireside Inn. They are here on a wintry Sunday afternoon for the annual Upper Valley Wedding Expo. And Elvis is the star of the show.

Barry Seaver wiggles his fingers and jogs in place in black cowboy boots, waiting for the master of ceremonies to make the introduction. "I don't know why, but I still get nervous every time I do this," he says backstage to his 11-year-old daughter, Jessica.

"Don't worry, Dad," she says, "you'll do great."

Barry has been doing the Elvis gig for almost 10 years. Office parties, parades, birthday bashes. A radio station once hired him to perform at the White River Junction post office on the first day the Elvis Presley stamp was sold.

His public appearances have not been restricted to just Elvis. In the late '80s, he was selected to be a contestant on a local radio station's "cash giveaway." Trumpeted as the "roll in the dough," contestants were doused with honey and put in a large tent with play paper money covering the ground.

The station expected the winner to pick up a few thousand bucks, which would then be converted into real money. But they hadn't planned on Barry. Having surmised that paper bills would stick better to his skin than his clothes, on a cold November day Barry stripped down to his boxer shorts.

He walked out of the tent with $13,474.

"WELCOME TO THE FIRESIDE INN, home of the largest ballroom in the Upper Valley," the tuxedo-clad master of ceremonies announces.

As the wedding models exit the runway, the emcee urges audience members to stay in their seats. "We have more prizes to give away."

A few minutes later, the second part of the show is about to begin. With music blaring and the spotlight focused on the runway, Elvis bursts through the curtain. Women giggle. Microphone in hand, Elvis starts to croon.

Baby let me be,
your lovin' Teddy Bear
Put a chain around my neck,
and lead me anywhere
Oh let me be
Your teddy bear.

But something is wrong with the sound system, the words cracking as they leave Barry's mouth. He tries to stay focused on the lyrics, but in the back of his mind a voice keeps saying, "This sucks."

The performance gathers momentum when Barry hops off the runway and plants himself in the lap of a man with graying hair and glasses.

Baby let me be, around you every night
Run your fingers through my hair,
And cuddle me real tight.

The crowd roars. The man stares straight ahead, expressionless, the blood draining from his face.

After the performance, Jessica bounces into the dressing room. "That was so cool, Dad," she beams, giving Barry a hug. "You rocked"

"Thanks."

After she leaves, Barry sinks into a chair, still wearing his white jump suit and red cape.

ON ANOTHER JANUARY DAY, upstairs in the Fireside Inn, Room 260 is empty and the door is open. The hotel has removed both beds, preparing to renovate the room in time for the busy ski season. But the lingering staleness of cigarette smoke remains.

A housekeeper, a thin woman with curly hair in her early 20s, is hunched over, picking empty food cartons and soda cans off the floor.

"They left this morning," she says. "They paid their bill and took off. It didn't take them long at all."

MOVING WAS NOT something Kate and her family had planned to do.

With the Hartford campground where they had stayed since summer on the verge of closing for the season in October, the Fireside had offered them a discounted rate of $50 per night, which included breakfast.

We'll need the room for three months, Kate's mother, Robin, told the front desk clerk. That should be enough time, Robin thought, to find an affordable apartment close to work in West Lebanon and also come up with the roughly $2,000 needed for moving-in costs.

Nearly three months after arriving at the hotel, neither has happened.

With their time nearly up, they went back to the hotel's front desk, asking if they could keep the room longer. "I'll have to check," the clerk said.

The next morning Robin and her granddaughter, Olivia, were eating breakfast in the dining room when they were approached by the hotel's general manager.

"I understand you want to extend your stay," began Robert Sundell.

"That's right," replied Robin.

"Unfortunately," he said, "we are entering our busy season and have already booked that room. If you had come to us a couple of weeks earlier we might have been able to work something out."

"What about moving us to another room?" Sundell shook his head.

"I'm sorry," he said, adding that they could stay one more week if they needed the time to find another place.

Robin and her granddaughter went back upstairs. Kate and her sister had already left for the McDonald's where they work. Robin picked up the phone book, turning to the Yellow Pages. On page 111 she found the listing for hotels and motels.

In the back of her mind, Robin was already contemplating what they could do if this search turned up empty. Maybe we can move back to Massachusetts and live with my sister, she thought.

THE FIRESIDE INN HOUSEKEEPER emptying out Room 260 says she's not sure where Kate and her family went. She bends down to pick up more crumpled paper plates and utensils off the carpet.

A small pile of children's toys sits heaped on the dresser, the plastic artifacts remaining from countless McDonald's Happy Meals.