Burn Out (5 page)

“Help you, ma’am?”

“Maybe. Sara Perez sent me.”

“Oh, yeah, I haven’t got around to returning her call.” The man picked up a rag and began wiping the surface in front of me.

He added, “Reason I’ve been putting it off is that I had an ugly scene with Miri Perez in here last night, and then this morning I heard the news about Hayley from one of my delivery drivers.”

“Did you know her?”

“Hayley? Not really. She was just one of the kids who would come in to drag their drunken parents home. She ran away before she even finished high school.”

“What kind of ugly scene did you have with Miri?”

He frowned at me. “You a friend of the Perez family?”

“Ramon’s the manager on my husband’s and my ranch.”

“You’re Hy Ripinsky’s wife.”

“Right.”

“Well, then.” He leaned forward on the bar, lowering his voice and glancing at the patrons. They were absorbed in watching a ’Niners pass completion. “Miri came in last night about nine-thirty. I’d permanently eighty-sixed her a year ago, on account of she’s a problem drunk. But she was sober and behaving herself so I let her stay. My mistake.”

“What happened?”

“She was alone when she came in, but Miri’s never alone for long. Not because she’s particularly attractive—not any more, anyway—but because she has this reputation.” He stopped, probably abashed at having said that much to a friend of Ramon and Sara.

“I know about Miri’s problems,” I said. “Go on.”

“Well, there was a bunch of guys down from Bridgeport. Not bad guys, but they get kinda rowdy when the wives aren’t around. One of them started buying Miri shots and she got rowdy too. Started making nasty remarks to the people at the next table, lobbed some popcorn at them, then threw a drink in one woman’s face. Was cussing me out and swinging at me when I cut her off. I had to escort her out. The guy went with her.”

“What time was this?”

“After eleven, but not much. Ramon came in looking for Miri around midnight.”

“You know the name of the guy she left with?”

“His friends called him Dino. Like Dean Martin, the singer.”

“What about his friends? You have a full name for any of them?”

“Only Cullen Bradley. Owns a hardware store in Bridgeport.”

“Any idea where this Dino and Miri might’ve been heading?”

“Her place? The motel? That’s the usual deal with Miri. No, wait a minute.” He touched his fingers to his brow. “Before I escorted them out the guy said something to her about the Outhouse.”

“The
what
?”

He smiled. “It’s a tavern, up the highway about fifteen miles. Used to be a gas station. They’ve got the best fried chicken in the county.”

Somehow I doubted Dino and Miri were headed there for the food. “Did you mention this to Ramon?”

“Yeah, I did. He wasn’t happy about it.”

“You say this place is fifteen miles up the highway?”

“Give or take.”

“Ramon couldn’t have followed them—he didn’t have a vehicle.”

“Miri did. I saw her old van in the lot when I showed them the door. But they didn’t take it; they got into a red Jeep Cherokee. And the van was gone when I closed up.”

“You notice the license plate number of the Cherokee?”

“My eyesight hasn’t been that good since 1992.”

“So you think Ramon might’ve taken the van?”

“Maybe.”

“It’s unlikely he had a key; he and Miri haven’t been on speaking terms for years.”

“Ramon wouldn’t’ve needed a key. Not old Magic Fingers.”

“What does that mean?”

“Ramon’s been hot-wiring cars since he was a kid. Made the mistake of getting caught after he was eighteen, did a stretch in prison for it.”

As I drove up the highway toward the Outhouse, I thought about the assumptions we make about people and how sometimes they’re totally wrong. Hardworking, upwardly mobile Ramon Perez—a car thief? An ex-con? Did Hy know about his past? Most likely: Vernon was a small town, and Hy had grown up there.

Why hadn’t he mentioned it to me? Probably because Ramon had turned his life around and his misdeeds weren’t relevant any more. Hy was big on giving people second chances; God knew he’d received more than his fair share of them.

It was a beautiful day, and I tried to enjoy the drive. The lake spread below me as I negotiated the road’s switchbacks, its placid surface reflecting the clear blue of the sky. In the distance I could glimpse the dark, glassy mound of Obsidian Dome, one of the many distinctive formations created by the volcanic activity that shaped this land. In 1982 the U.S. Geological Survey issued a hazard warning that an eruption the size of the 1980 Mount Saint Helens disaster could occur here at any time. The warning is in effect to this day.

After I reached the ten-mile mark, the road—still climbing—veered to the east and cut between rocky slopes to which scrub pine clung. Five miles more, and the Outhouse appeared on my left. It was a typical old-fashioned gas station with a roof over the pumps, but the main structure had been considerably enlarged; the pumps were antiques— Socony before it became Mobil Oil—and lighted beer signs hung in the front windows. I parked in the gravel lot and went inside.

In spite of being far from any town, the place was doing a good business: most of the tables and booths were taken. I found one of the last empty seats at the bar. The air was heavy with the smell of frying; my stomach rumbled in response. The best fried chicken in the county, huh? I hadn’t had really good fried chicken in ages.

The bartender was working hard; I waited, looking around at the decor: old automobile license plates from various states; signed celebrity photos from the forties and fifties; mildly amusing signs such as
IN GOD WE TRUST. ALL OTHERS MUST PAY CASH
; mounted animal heads wearing party hats. I’d been in other supposedly vintage places and knew decorations of this kind could be purchased new as a package from restaurant-equipment firms, but the Outhouse’s seemed to be the real thing.

When the bartender finally got to me, I ordered a Sierra Nevada and a basket of chicken and fries. The beer came quickly, the chicken much later. “Sorry about the wait,” he said as he set it down.

“No problem. You’re busy.”

“Swamped and shorthanded.” Someone down the bar called out to him, and he hurried away.

I ate slowly. The chicken was some of the best I’d ever tasted. The seats around me gradually emptied, as did the booths and tables. I was toying with a french fry when the last customer left.

The bartender—a youngish guy with long hair pulled back in a ponytail—went to the door and turned the sign to
CLOSED
. Came back around the bar to me and said, “Anything else, ma’am?” Clearly he hoped I’d say no.

“Some information, if you don’t mind. You hear about Hayley Perez being killed last night?”

“Yeah.” He shook his head. “Tough break, but Hayley always lived dangerously. One wild child.”

“You knew her well?”

“No. We went to high school together, but she was older and we didn’t run with the same crowd.”

“Who did she run with?”

“The wrong people. Druggies, dropouts, you know.”

“Any names?”

“Why the interest?”

“I’m a friend of the family. I’m helping them get a list together for the memorial service.”

That satisfied him. “Well, let’s see. She was tight with a girl named Loni . . . something, but I haven’t seen her around in a long time. Her boyfriend was Tom Mathers; he’s married now, runs a wilderness supply and guide service. And then there was Rich Three Wings; they had a thing going too, was what broke Hayley and Tom up. You can forget about him, he’d never come to a service.”

“Why not?”

“Because him and Hayley left town together and he came back alone three years later. Wouldn’t ever talk about what happened. Now he lives alone in a cabin on Elk Lake. I hear he’s got a girlfriend who lives in Vernon, spends weekends at the lake with him.”

“You know her name?”

He shook his head.

“I take it Three Wings is Indian.”

“Paiute.” He studied my features. “You’re . . . ?”

“Shoshone.”

“Well then, maybe you can get through to Rich. You people have a way of communicating, even if you’re from different tribes.”

You people.

I’d been hearing that all my life, even back before I found out I was adopted, when I’d thought I was seven-eighths Scotch-Irish and my looks a throwback to my Shoshone great-grandmother. I counted to ten—well, seven, actually—and said, “I understand Hayley’s mother may have come in here last night. Were you working then?”

“Yeah. I’m doing a triple shift. Like I said, we’re shorthanded.”

“And Miri . . . ?”

“She didn’t come in. I’d’ve noticed, because she’s on our watch list. Terrible, mean drunk.”

“What about her brother-in-law, Ramon?”

“He was here. Asked me about her.”

“When was this?”

“Around one. I told him I’d call if she turned up, and then he left.”

“He say where he was going?”

“Nope. He seemed kind of . . . I don’t know. Angry, but keeping a lid on it. Now I understand. If my niece had been murdered, I don’t know what I’d do.”

I paid for my lunch, including a substantial tip, and left.

Bridgeport, the county seat and the town where the man who had left Hobo’s with Miri lived, was some thirty miles northwest on Highway 395. I knew of a cutoff that would take me there from this road. It was early yet, and I didn’t feel like going back to the ranch—there would surely be a call from Ted pleading for me to open up to him—so I decided to drive up north and see if I could find the hardware store owner, Cullen Bradley.

Bridgeport is a charming town, with its stately eighteen-eighties courthouse, old homes, and steepled churches. Once known as Big Meadows because of the vast grazing land around it, it’s also an outdoor person’s paradise, surrounded by pristine lakes and streams for fishing or boating. Its greatest claim to fame is that it was used as the location for many of the scenes in the classic 1947 film noir
Out of the Past.
Hy disputes that; he says its claim to fame is being the only place that a drunken young man succeeded in lassoing and pulling down a street lamp from the bed of a moving pickup. The young man, of course, was Hy—whose reward for his feat was having to perform community service and pay for a new light pole. Every now and then when we’re there we visit it, and he says someday he’s going to mount a plaque on it.

I found Bradley’s Hardware on a side street two blocks from the courthouse. It had a graveled parking lot in back; I pulled in, left the Land Rover there, and entered through the rear door. I love hardware stores and this smelled like a good one: not the sanitized, filtered odor of a Home Depot, but a mixture of wood and metal and paint and other unidentifiable but appropriate items. The bare floors were warped, the shelves sagging under their wares. I had to weave my way through a warren of aisles to get to the front. Immediately a friendly young clerk appeared and asked if he could help me find anything.

“Is Mr. Bradley in?”

“He’s in his office, but . . . If you’re selling something, I wouldn’t bother him today.”

“How come?”

He leaned forward and said in a whisper, “Bad night. He had me bring him some of what he calls ‘hair of the dog’ a while ago.”

“Well, this is a personal matter. I’ll take my chances.”

“Back that way.” He jerked his thumb toward a door behind the sales counter. “Good luck.”

The door was slightly ajar. I knocked and called out to Bradley.

“What?” A shade irritable, but not too bad. The dog’s hair must have been working.

“May I come in?”

“If you must.” As I moved through the door, he added, “Who the hell are you?” He was a red-faced, fortyish man with a shock of gray-blond hair, and his skin had that flaccid look that a night of hard drinking will produce.

I introduced myself, said I was looking for a friend of his who had been with him at Hobo’s in Vernon the night before. “The bartender said you called him Dino.”

“Dino Martin. His parents named him for the singer. Funny thing is, he can’t hold a note. Sounds like my old hound dog when he tries.”

“Where can I reach him?”

“Why do you want to?”

“A friend of mine left the bar with him. She hasn’t come home, and I’m worried.”

“You must mean Miri Perez.”

“Yes.”

“Well, she’s probably shacked up with him someplace. It’s kind of what she does.”

“Still, I’d like to talk with him.”

He hesitated. “Okay. Try Martin Realty, a block west.”

I thanked him and left him to his hangover.

Martin’s Realty was a small storefront whose windows were plastered with fliers featuring their listings. There were two desks arranged in the front room, but no one was seated at them. A pair of doors opened to the rear, one of which bore a placard saying
DINO MARTIN
. I knocked and a gravelly voice said to come in.

Martin could not have less resembled the famed singer after whom he’d been named. He was bald except for a badly dyed fringe of black hair and a short, sparse beard. His eyes were red and puffy; purple veins stood out on his large nose. I judged him to be on the far side of fifty. As I stepped into the office, he picked up a coffee mug with a shaking hand and gulped its contents.

More dog hair?

I introduced myself, said I was a friend of the Perez family.

“And who the hell’re they?”

“Miri Perez’s relatives. You were with her last night in Hobo’s—”

“Oh, that crazy bitch.”

“You left with her, said something about going to the Outhouse.”

“Yeah. I figured it was the only bar between Vernon and Bridgeport she hadn’t been thrown out of yet.”

“But you didn’t go there.”

He put a hand over his eyes like a visor, as if it hurt to look up, and motioned for me to sit down on the chair across from him. “No, we didn’t. I was reasonably sober when we left Hobo’s, but after what happened, I tied one on when I got back to town. The wife’s ready to kill me.”

“What happened?”