Mad Season (13 page)

Though he looked quite pleased. He was to appear on WCAX-TV tonight, he told Colm. Even now he was going home to shave. “Town’s back on the map,” he said, and Colm assumed by “back” he meant the Ferraro boy’s drug case, the famous son set up by a local detective. Fallon grinned, spread his hands, like it was a holdup.

On the way out Colm ran into Mert Downes. The man was a puffed-up martinet, a primitive, something out of Aesop’s fables, the frog that blew himself up. Now he was bouncing up to Colm, confiding in him, the chief had bawled him out. Nothing was happening and it was three days already. The townspeople were nervous, there were fifty calls a day: women locking themselves in, walking their kids to school.

There were sightings on the red sports car, of course, Mert said, in his too-loud voice, at the rate of four a day, and the chief wasn’t doing a “goddamn thing ‘cept running off to TV shows.” Mert looked disgusted. He would apply for detective when Wisnowski left—the guy was too old for this, he said. Did the chief want his murderer to get to China? Mert grinned at his joke. That would take care of him all right. The Commies would chop him up for Sunday dinner. They’d make chopsticks out of him. Hee-hee.

Colm squeezed past the man, smelled something as he went. Had the man let out wind?

They had to find that guy, Smith, solve this thing. Had to! He couldn’t name all the reasons.

* * * *

When he left the station, Colm went back to Catamount to see Kurt Unsworth. The boy (or man—already the hair was thinning, the forehead lined—cocaine, whatever else, though Kurt was just nineteen) appeared in the door, a forced smile on his face, the lips set like they’d let no negative come across the tongue.

“You know why I’m here,” Colm said. He held out a letter Fallon had given him.

Unsworth didn’t bother to look at it. He just stood there, tall and lean as a birch tree. Hands in his back pockets, lips pressing together till they turned porcelain. When Colm posed the question, about the fat man and the red car, the lips quivered, like they’d try to come unglued but couldn’t. Good-looking fellow in a dead way, the face around the lips was marble.

There was still no answer, and Colm repeated the question. “You delivered brochures together, didn’t you? For the raffle?” He didn’t want Unsworth to think he was coming after him—just the other guy. He wasn’t prepared for the response.

“I was always alone with the raffle tickets, man, when I took ‘em—but not that often.” His mother, he said, was a “sucker” for “that kind of thing.” Kurt had a thick voice, like he’d been drinking gravy.

Yes, another man, Jules Smith, had worked here, Kurt said. Yes, he left. No, he had no idea where. “We hardly spoke, I mean everybody tells jokes, man, it’s how we get through a coffee break.”

Anyway, Kurt Unsworth didn’t care much for jokes.

As for the Larocque house: no, he hadn’t been there with tickets. If any were found it would have been that other one, Smith— “serious guy actually,” he said with the barest lisp to his gravy voice, “a loner, overweight, yeah, some.”

But not Kurt Unsworth. “I’ve never been in the place,” he said and turned up his nose like he could smell it now, in this small white office. The lips relaxed, he seemed to feel he’d exonerated himself, he turned to go.

“We have the tickets,” Colm said. “They’re down at the station. We’d like to have you stop for fingerprints.”

This time he scored. Unsworth wheeled about in the doorway. His voice came out cracked but angry. “Anyone’s fingerprints could be on those tickets. We all handled them for chrissake. It was my job to divide them up for the guys to distribute. I’m not going to any fuckin’ police to be fingerprinted!”

Colm breathed in the way he’d taught himself to do in real estate. One had to deal with all kinds. Time wasters, young couples who “might.” “We’ll see,” he said and nodded pleasantly, though his Irish was up inside.

He didn’t have the temperament for this job, to tell the truth. There was that sudden anger up and he was off. It almost killed him once, up in Montreal, that anger, when he’d got out of his car to respond to a driver’s finger, and the driver pulled a knife. It was maybe that anger that brought on his granddad’s death.

Well, he should never have mentioned the fingerprinting. Of course he couldn’t make this boy-man be fingerprinted. He had no evidence. He wasn’t even a policeman. Besides, there’d be any number of fingerprints on the tickets: probably Belle’s would cover the rest, and Unsworth knew it. He was smart. Though Colm was certain he now saw fear in the eyes. The eyes looked, well, haunted. He’d seen eyes like that on the dead, on the suicides. His father got a suicide once, twice a year.

Unsworth took a step toward him. “If you must know,” he said, “it was my brother Wilder. He was the one sold those tickets. I was, well, under the weather. Wilder took them over to Larocque’s for me.” He headed for the door again.

Then said over his shoulder, “He’s my half- brother. He’s straight. You understand?”

Chapter Eight

When Colm found Ruth in the heifer pen, flying at the end of a rope, he wondered if he’d stumbled into a rodeo. Seconds later she had it around the neck of one beast while two others charged about the pen.

“Go, girl,” he shouted as she slid through the mud, or worse.

“Don’t just stand there,” she yelled back, and he took a deep breath and plunged in, helped her drag the roped heifer to a corner post. When the animal was secured she took a metal ear tag out other jeans: “Now get a headlock on this girl.”

He said, “What?” and she said, “Hold her tight while I get this tag on, or it’ll rip her ear.”

“Darling,” he said, and grabbed the heifer. He hoped Ruth had good aim, he didn’t need a yellow tag in his ear.

The heifer leaped: stood on two front legs, embracing Colm; then, as the tag sprang shut, sank down on all fours, staggering Colm back against the edge of the pen.

“Is that all?” he gasped, “I came to tell you something, not—”

“One more and we’re done,” she said. “Hang on now.” She roped the neck of a large heifer with a mean-looking black patch over one eye. When Colm tried to get the beast in a headlock, she lunged at the rear of the pen. Colm lost his footing on the shit-slippery floor and skidded six feet on his knees.

The laughter behind him might have come out of a canned game show.

Tim said, “Nice choreography.” He pulled Colm upright and brushed him off. Easy as swatting a fly, he grabbed the reluctant heifer and Ruth jammed in the ear tag.

“Where were you when we needed you?” Colm said.

Tim grinned. “Fixing fence. I told you to wait for me, Ruth.”

Ruth said, “Oh, but I had Colm.”

Colm smiled feebly and stumbled out of the pen. Maybe he knew now why Pete had quit the farm.

It took a full five minutes to get back his breath, never mind his dignity. He couldn’t think why he’d come at all. He was wet and miserable, it had snowed two inches the night before—almost mid-April, jeez. One thing he did know: he had to get his boots re-soled if he was to keep on seeing Ruth; the wet manure had soaked up into his socks.

“Any news?” she said. Now she was bent over a cow, feeding it something from her hand. He had to admit, she had a fine rump— should he make comparisons?

“I was thinking how good you look. Like that.” Then kicked himself for saying it. They weren’t students anymore.

She dove back into the cow to hide the flush that was spreading over her face. “Just tell me the news. No backhanded compliments.”

There was the red car, that’s why he’d come. “The call came an hour ago. They found it in a used-car lot in Plattsburgh. Jules Smith—I doubt Smith is the real name, how obvious can you get? Traded it in for a tan Honda Civic. Generic looking car, every other car on the highway is gray or tan, a Honda. Of course he doesn’t know we’re looking for him, but he’d suspect. He knows the bartender would talk. Temporary plates—he’ll trade them in. He could be in Kansas by now. Or return here. We only know the trade-in was two days ago.”

He’d said it all in one breath. He smiled to meet her smile, patted the cow’s rump. “This is Jane,” she said. “Jane Eyre, my yearling. Expecting soon, you might gather.”

Artificially inseminated, he assumed. There wasn’t a bull on the place that he’d seen. Pete came to mind, and he stuck his tongue in his cheek.

He said, “Pleased to meet you, Jane. But I don’t want to dance.”

The cow turned a wary eye on him, flicked her tail. A fluff of hay flew in his face and he coughed.

“Allergic?”

He moved back a step in case Jane decided to relieve herself.

She laughed out loud. The laugh lit up her face, took off years. Though the lines were there, even in the dim-lit barn: the past week had hurt. He was glad he’d come, she needed the support. Her kids had their own lives, they wouldn’t help that much, except to keep her busy, worried, frustrated.

He told her about his meeting with Carol Unsworth.

“What did you think of her?” she asked. They were leaning against Jane’s stall, like it was a natural place for friends to meet (he’d started to think lovers and slapped his hip).

“Nice lady,” he said. “I think “lady” is the word. The sheep look well cared for. Tell me about your visit.”

“Oh, we had coffee and cookies. I was angry when I went there, to talk about school. Her son was one of the ringleaders.”

“You mentioned that.”

“I was mad, but I calmed down. She made me. She was nervous too. She seem nervous with you?”

“Yeah, I was going to say that. She kept fluttering her eyelashes.”

She didn’t smile. “Why did you go, really? Because of Wilder’s connection to Emily?”

“Basically, yes. I was there to see Wilder, but he didn’t have much to say. But I found something interesting.”

This time Jane Eyre lifted her tail, and Ruth said, “Oh,” and they moved away from the stanchion. Outside the barn, standing in two inches of muddy snow, he told her about the raffle tickets. “A pile of them. Mama bought what son couldn’t sell.”

“Wilder?”

He thought of the liaison with Emily. Besides, Kurt might have been lying. “The older one. Works at Catamount Furniture.”

“Oh. I know about him. The druggie. Emily told me. One of the reasons the family came to Vermont. You think he’s connected?”

He said, “We have to look at everyone, Ruth. Kurt says Wilder sold the tickets to the Larocques. We have to look into that.”

“Ask him. Sounds innocent enough.”

“I hope so.” He saw her lips press together. “I thought you could ask him.”

“Maybe. It’s delicate. Or get Emily to.”

She came back to the fact of the traded car, the only tangible in hand. “That’s good news, anyway. It means the man was guilty, trading in cars like that. Though he must have known he’d be checked on, as you say. I suppose he’ll keep trading?”

“Possible. Latest car is six years older. He may just abandon it, buy another. So we’re checking everything. Police, FBI. They’re alerted across the country, Canadian border.”

There was a silence. He saw how attractive she was, even in her muddy shirt. Her neck was palest pale. Celtic skin, he’d read, was especially vulnerable to sun—to feeling, too, maybe. The blood was reddening her nose, or maybe it was the damp air. Anyway, he had to smile. In a minute he’d be ear to ear. He coughed again.

“Got any coffee in that kitchen of yours?” he asked. “I mean, I’ll make it if you don’t.”

She looked confused and said, “Oh, sure, I should have offered. Popovers, too. That is, maybe. Vic’s home.”

“I’ll take my chances.” He followed her up to the house, stamping the manure off his feet into the snow. He guessed he needed a shower more than a popover.

She turned by the porch. “Plattsburgh?” she said. “A used-car lot in Plattsburgh? That’s where that broker comes from. I have her card. Plattsburgh, it said.”

He tripped on the porch step, thinking about that.

* * * *

Tim asked, “Anything else you want done?” and Lucien shook his head.

Cows milked, barn swept, nothing for it but to face another night. He might have said to the fellow, “Toddy? Come in then,” but his tongue wouldn’t wrap around the words. Lucien wanted company and he didn’t. What he really wanted was up there on the hill. Willmarth’s hired man was hardly Belle. Mother of God, hardly!

The beagle Marie got him nipped at his heels, and he pushed it away with a foot. He told Marie he didn’t want no other dog after Raoul, but she went and got it anyway. He refused to give it a name, just called it Dog.

But then when Tim was gone, his squarish back moving across the field toward Willmarth’s, he wanted to call him back. Maybe he would like company.

“Tim?” Heard his voice, croaking like an old frog.

But too late. Tim kept going. He allowed the dog to come in the house with him anyway. He locked himself in every night now since Belle’s death. It was getting familiar, pushing the bolt. He’d filed off the rust, it worked all right. He yanked the shades— Belle’d put them up, he laughed when she did it: “Don’t want heifers seeing you in your nightgown, woman?” But he was glad of them. Never thought he would be, but he was. He went to the Kelvinator for ice, tray was all crusty, poured himself a drink. It was Marie’s husband brought him the rum. Just handed it to him in a bag, wouldn’t look him in the eye. Drank, Harold, but held it, up to a point. Heard him sound off once or twice, mostly about farms. They smelled bad, he said. Well, that was all right, each to his own. No, himself he never drank much. Just a beer off and on.

But there was something in it, he saw why they did it. After the first jolt, the lip pucker, went down smooth, better than any hot plaster on the chest.

He sat down opposite Belle’s chair and then pulled himself up again, turned his rocker around to face the shaded window. God, he had to get used to this “alone” thing. Dog wasn’t gonna help, he saw that, just sitting there by an empty dish. There was a French-speaking station out of Montreal and he got up to turn on the radio. But it was all talk and he switched it off. Ear didn’t pick up French the way it used to, as a boy.