Murder in the Wings (8 page)

Finally, I figured out where she was taking us. Out of town, of course. I looked at my gas gauge. Given my usual state of finances, and because I never really left high school, I normally put in five bucks at a time. Fortunately, I'd only recently put in my latest geyser so the Honda could go for many miles.

You could see the spring coming up, even in the rain, which was increasing. There were corn and sorghum and oats and barley in the fields. In the murk, the foliage on the hills ringing the city was dark gray. A farmer on a tractor with bug-eyed headlights waved to us from the other lane. Now that she was on a two-lane highway, Evelyn Ashton seemed not only to know exactly where she was going but also to be in a hell of a hurry to get there.

We went deeper into the country, which was all right with me. I don't like country music, hunting, horseshoes, or barn dances, but I do like living in a city that's no more than twenty minutes away from the countryside. There's a sanity in nature you could never find in the city.

The downpour continued, banging against the roof like bullets.

Donna woke up, reached over, and touched me affectionately on the arm. "How you doing, hon?"

"Fine."

"We still following Evelyn?"

"Yeah." The sleep had mellowed her out.

"We know where she's going yet?"

"Uh-huh."

Donna rubbed some of the steam off the window. "Boy, look at those poor cows."

About a dozen milk cows stood on the side of a bare hill in the rain.

"Yeah," I said, knowing what she meant. I wanted to buy a bunch of rain ponchos and go out there and cover them up.

"Can I turn on the radio?"

"Sure."

"All right if I play Top Forty?"

"Fine." Sometimes jazz bummed her out. Today she didn't need any help being bummed out. A happy tune came on, bright, quick, empty. It was fine with me.

We had now gone maybe twenty miles. Ahead was a small town. Back at the turn of the century there'd been a railroad watering stop here, just big enough for a hamlet of a couple of thousand to spring up. It was named Brackett.

Evelyn turned off the highway on to an asphalt road that led to the town. From there I could see a billboard touting a restaurant that specialized in roast beef dinners. I could also see a DX gasoline sign, a church steeple, and a water tower.

"Damn," I said.

"What?"

"She just turned but I'm not sure where."

Ahead of me, Evelyn had followed the curving road into town. I'd made the mistake of thinking that she would follow the asphalt directly into Brackett. But now that I looked I didn't see her. There were two gravel roads on either side of the asphalt, but they were mostly hidden by blooming trees. She could have turned onto either one.

I'd lost her.

I pounded the steering wheel and said, "Damn it."

"Maybe you should start watching 'Magnum P.I. '" She had grace enough to lean over and kiss me.

I
took the gravel road that headed east. It ran parallel to a narrow muddy river. Even in the rain there was a fisherman out there in rubber gear in his beat-up boat. He waved. We waved back.

"That's what I like about the country," Donna said. "Everybody's so friendly."

"I'll take you to a small-town bar where the farmhands get together on Friday night," I said, remembering a brawl I'd helped break up one night. "Then you'll see just how friendly the country can get."

"That's it," she said, "spoil my fantasy. Don't you believe in Ibsen's theory?"

"What theory?"

"Boy, Dwyer. You're supposed to be an actor."

"Last month I had to get inside a lumpy brown suit for a commercial and play a potato. I don't know from Ibsen, believe me."

"Well, he had this theory about the 'saving lie.' How the only thing that saves us from cracking up is our delusions."

For some reason, that reminded me of the old woman last night, Mrs. Bridges. Was I trying to save her delusions by clearing the theater of any wrongdoing in Michael Reeves's murder?

For the next few minutes I watched the road. The rain was ceaseless, dismal. Donna twisted herself into a half-foetal and pushed her face to the window to stare out at the dying day. It was one of those times when she looked very much like a little girl. I wanted to hug her.

There was a steep dip in the gravel road, and just below the crest a small log cabin set between two towering pines appeared.

"Boy, it's like the Old West."

"Yeah, maybe Gabby Hayes is in there."

"Or Wyatt Earp—what's his name, the actor who played him? Boy, was he cute."

The owner of the cabin had made no concession to modern times. There was no place for a car to be parked. There was just a steep clay cliff where the road ended and a wide patch of dead grass where you could take a leak or put your car. I parked.

"Where you going? It's raining," Donna said as I opened the door.

"See who's around."

"Well, obviously Evelyn isn't here. She must've taken the other road."

"I know, but maybe the people inside know something about the territory. Evelyn was obviously going someplace she was familiar with. Which gives her a distinct advantage. Okay?"

"Okay," she said, "then I'll go with you."

The run through the rain was like a trip through a carwash without a car. We got to the little overhang above the door. The air was tangy. It was nice to be dry for the moment and have our senses filled with the smell of pine.

Donna did the knocking. "Man, that stuff is hard on the old knuckles." The door was scaly with bark. There was a faded flour-sack curtain on the lone window. It moved almost imperceptibly. I sensed eyes on us.

"Whaddaya want?" somebody shouted through the logs that formed the wall. It was like putting your lips to your arm and talking.

"Just need some information," I said.

I didn't know where to put my eyes or aim my voice.

"What kinda information?"

"Tell him you'd like to know the meaning of life," Donna said.

"Just some information on the land around here." I was starting to shout.

"You with the press?"

"No."

"Hold on then."

"This guy better be worth the wait," I said. And he almost was.

When the door was flung back a minute or so later, a fifty-year-old man with enough physical eccentricities to be a pro wrestler stood before us, hands on his hips and a scowl on his lips.

He had one burning blue eye; a black patch covered the other. He had fleshy, muscular arms covered with enough tattoos to fill an Oriental sampler. His shirtless torso had knockers big enough to rival a porn star's. His jeans were held up with a piece of honest-to-god twine. In case we hadn't gotten the picture yet, behind him, right in the middle of the single-room cabin, sat a big old Harley with handlebars nearly wide enough to touch either wall and enough chrome to blind you on a sunny day.

"I'm Jake."

"I'm Jack."

"Who's the babe?"

"I'm Donna."

"Jack and Donna, Jake is glad to meet ya."

And he put out a hand you could have rested a typewriter in. Donna did a much better job of disguising the pain his handshake inflicted than I did. She just bit her lip till tears came to her eyes.

We were close enough to Jake that when he raised his arm to proffer the shake, we got a good, if unwanted, look at the splendiferous black hair of his armpits. I mean this bastard could have taken his pits on tour. I've seen less hair in full beards.

But there was a problem with his pits, as there was a problem with his place. To say it smelled like a pig sty would be to understate. It was one of those high, hard odors that made you wince and then shudder and then cup your nose. (I used to have an uncle who should have put a flashing red light on the bathroom door for an hour after he was finished in there.)

"You wanna come inside?" Jake asked.

"No," I said.

"No, we like it out here in the cold rain," Donna said.

"She kiddin' or what?" Jake said.

"No, cold and rain are two of her favorite things. Put them together and she goes bug shit."

"Weird broad," Jake said.

"Isn't she, though," I said. I was going to pay for that one. "Can I ask you a question, Jake?"

"Sure." For a moment, he sounded like a pirate. I almost expected him to add, "Matey." He smiled, giving us a look at a set of teeth that could have tired out a full team of dentists.

"Why did you want to know if we were with the press?"

"Aww, hell, the election."

"Election? It's May."

"No, the Road Knights' election."

"Road Knights?"

He flung a flabby arm toward the Harley. "I'm the president of the Knights, you know. But this is the first year in thirty fucking—excuse me, lady—years I've got somebody runnin' against me."

"The Road Knights are a biker gang and the press covers your election?"

"Well, maybe 'press' is stretchin' things a bit. It's actually just a guy named Schleimer who runs the local county shopper. He says there's a lot of interest about the Knights 'cause we're always gettin' in so much trouble with the law'n all and folks'll be curious about the election. So I'm just sittin' it out here today while all the ballots are cast at the tavern in Brackett."

"Think you're gonna win?"

He made a fist. Hell, I was impressed. "I goddamn better."

"Democracy in action," Donna said. I wanted to turn around and say to her, okay, if you're so frigging smart why don't you let me hide behind you and then wise off to him? Jake didn't catch her exact meaning, but he knew a smartass when he saw one.

"Actually, Jake, we're wondering if a car came past here within the last few minutes."

He opened his mouth very wide and threw his head back and laughed. These days everybody is an actor. "A car came past here? Where the hell would it go?"

"Through the cliff over there?" He threw his head back again and did some more laughing. Maybe he thought I was a mobile Equity man and could give him his card on the spot.

"We were coming down the asphalt into Brackett and we noticed two gravel roads. We took this one. You know what's on the other one?"

"Dead end, just like this one."

"There a cabin there or anything?"

"Yeah. But not a cabin like this one. Big fancy-ass one is what it is. The Knights tried to bust in there one night but then the doctor showed up. In these parts nobody wants to fuck with the doctor." When he cursed, he glanced at Donna as if she might lob a hot brick at him.

"Who's the doctor?"

"Guy name of Kern."

"He live in the cabin?"

"No, he lives next to his funny farm."

"A mental hospital?"

"Yeah, but that ain't what they call it. You know, it's like the Sunrise Retreat or somethin' like that. But it's still for nut cases. You know, psychos and fags and intellectuals."

I could see that Donna was getting ready to laugh. I hoped she didn't. My jaw was still a lot closer to his fist than hers was.

"But he stays at the cabin sometimes?"

"Yeah. Even takes some of those fruitcakes along with him sometimes." He shook his head in solidcitizen disgust. "The fucking people they let run loose, it makes you wonder, just like my old man always said; it just goddamn makes you wonder."

She couldn't take it anymore, Donna couldn't. She knew that if she laughed Jake here would put me to the wall. So she started to wave us off (as if a runner on third were about to steal home) and at the same time to back out into the rain.

I tried to distract him from watching her by keeping my questions going. "So how long has Doctor Kern owned the cabin?"

"Oh, he don't own it, Kern don't. It belongs to some rich-ass friends of his."

"Who's that?"

"City friends of his. The Bridges family."

Donna, who was still backing out into the rain, stopped. "The Bridges family?"

He looked at her. "Yeah. I say something wrong?" She shook her head.

"How come she's standin' in the rain?" he asked me.

"Cold and rain, remember?" I said. "Two of her favorite things." I got another whiff of the cabin. It was like flashing on your own death. "Well, gee, Jake, I sure hope you win that election."

He raised his fist again. "Don't you worry about that. Like I told Schleimer at the shopper, I'm gonna win one way or the other."

Behind me, in the gloom, the car door closed. Even from where I stood I heard Donna burst out laughing. Thankfully, Jake didn't seem to notice.

He put out his hand again. I didn't have any choice. I said a Hail Mary and put out my hand, too. If things didn't go Jake's way in the election, he could hire out as a trash compactor.