The Long and Faraway Gone (16 page)

“I'm not?”

“Have you ever had a conversation with someone at a party?” she said. “It's a wonderful conversation, but then you realize the other person has been edging toward the door the entire time.”

“Laurie,” Wyatt said. “Listen to me. That's ridiculous.”

“You really don't understand?” she said. “You really don't see it?”

Wyatt didn't want to have this conversation right now.

“We can talk about this when I get back,” he said. “We can talk as much as you want.”

“I just want . . . I want you to
think
about this,” she said. “Really think about it. About us.”

How could she know him so well but not know him at all? Wyatt didn't understand.

“I don't need to think about us,” he said. And then, before the silence could stretch too thin, “But I will. Okay? I will.”

After Wyatt said good-­bye to Laurie, he sat on the hood of the rented Altima for a minute. There were only a ­couple of clouds in the sky. He'd heard, when he was a kid, that Oklahoma City had more sunny days than almost any other city in the country. He didn't know if that was true or not, but he thought it might be. Even in the winter. January and February could get cold down on the southern plains, but there were also long periods of bright, blazing blue, the temperature in the sixties and seventies.

It was O'Malley, Wyatt remembered now, who'd told him that Oklahoma City had more sunny days than anywhere else in the country. They'd been loitering in the lobby, waiting for Mr. Bingham to emerge from his office so they could then quickly look busy. The new doorman had been there, too, the snobby rich kid who only lasted a month that summer before he quit. He'd sneered and said O'Malley was full of shit.

“What's your point?” O'Malley had asked pleasantly, and the new guy didn't know what to do with that.

Wyatt walked back around to the Land Run's employee parking lot. He set the loose planks aside and squeezed through the stockade fence again.

The warehouse behind the Land Run appeared to be abandoned. The loading bays were empty, and there was gang graffiti everywhere, balloon letters and demented squiggles. On the other side of the building, though, several cars were parked out front. Wyatt found a door and pressed the buzzer next to it. He waited. Just as he was about to give up, a lock clanked and the door swung open.

He stepped into an empty stairwell. He heard music above, so he climbed the set of shaky metal stairs to another door. This one opened onto the top floor of the warehouse, a huge airy space flooded with sunlight. At the far end of the room, a band was rehearsing—­a drummer, guitarist, and bass player noodling without a lot of enthusiasm through what sounded like an acid-­rock version of “Folsom Prison Blues.” Closer to Wyatt, at his end of the warehouse, a cluster of kids in their teens and twenties, hippies and white rastas, sat cross-­legged on the floor. They were dipping strips of newspaper into buckets of white goo and then placing the strips on a wire-­mesh armature the size and shape of a giant head.

The kids weren't paying much attention to the job at hand and none at all to the music. They were focused, rapt, on the action in the very center of the room—­a shirtless guy in a tartan kilt who squatted and then slowly lifted himself off the floor with his hands.

“Yeah!” a kid with fingerless gloves and a Shriner's fez called out.

“Hey, Lyle!” the guitar player called from the other side of the warehouse. “We need to work on the vocals at some point, man.”

The guy in the kilt ignored them both. He extended one leg, then the other, still balanced on just his hands. He flexed his bare toes.

Lyle.
The kilt, the vocals. Wyatt put the pieces together. The guy doing yoga was Lyle Finn, lead singer for the Barking Johnsons, the most well-­known rock band from Oklahoma City. Well, maybe the only well-­known rock band from Oklahoma City. The Barking Johnsons had started out in the late eighties and were best known for psychedelic rock, trippy stage spectaculars, and Lyle Finn's general eccentricity—­not necessarily in that order.

A guy came out of an office and walked over to Wyatt.

“Hey,” he said. “I'm Dixon. The band's manager.”

He was in his forties, wearing creased khakis and a polo shirt with a smear of what looked like blueberry yogurt on the collar. His face was friendly but slightly bewildered. He looked like a suburban dad who had awakened one morning and discovered, to his surprise, that he was now the manager of a rock band.

“Wyatt Rivers,” Wyatt said. He shook the guy's hand. “I'm a private detective.”

“Oh. I thought you were the balloon dealer.”

“That's a job?”

“Lyle wants me to buy him a hot-­air balloon. Like, a full-­size hot-­air balloon? I have no idea what he plans to do with it. Private detective?”

“The new owner of the Land Run has been having some problems at her place lately. She asked me to look into it.”

“Candace?”

“You know her?”

“Sure. She's cool. She booked a ­couple of the baby bands I manage. What kind of problems?”

Wyatt told him about the marquee letters, the bird poop, the break-­in.

The manager frowned. “Huh,” he said.

Wyatt had noted that the bank of windows along the south wall of the warehouse provided a good view down into the alley and the Land Run's back parking lot.

“Last night,” he said, “did you happen to notice anyone or anything suspicious? It would have been late, after the Land Run closed.”

“No. I took off early yesterday. Five or six o'clock. Lyle was the only one still around last night.”

“Can I talk to him?”

“You can try.”

Wyatt didn't know what that meant, but he followed the manager to the center of the floor, where Lyle Finn's yoga poses were becoming increasingly spirited. Wyatt hoped the guy was wearing boxers or briefs beneath his trademark kilt, because Wyatt had no desire to see his johnson, barking or otherwise.

“Mr. Finn,” he said, “I'd like to ask you a ­couple of questions.”

Finn glanced at Wyatt and then scissored his legs around, ending up balanced on his hands again.

“They say I have a way with words,” he announced. “ ‘They,' whatever that means. A way with words. But check it out. I say
away
with words. Away! Or
aweigh.
Like anchors aweigh? Because words are anchors. They anchor us, man. Because what is a sentence? What is a lyric? I want to make a record, man, where it's just, like, drums and a guitar and the beautiful wrenching cry of me giving birth. You know? I would love to be pregnant, man.”

He balanced on his hands and waited for Wyatt's reaction. Wyatt checked to see if he had one. He didn't.

“Great,” he said.

“Lyle,” the manager said, “just talk to the guy like you're a normal human being for a second, will you?”

Finn lowered himself to the floor and then sprang to his feet. Wyatt would never have guessed that Finn was almost fifty years old. He was tan and lithe, with long, golden, luxuriously cascading hair. On album covers and in music-­video close-­ups, his eyes were always filled with childlike wonder.

Finn pulled on a T-­shirt and gave Wyatt a hug.

“
Like
a normal human being,” he said. “Did you hear how Dixon said that? Dixon doesn't think I'm capable of
being
a normal human being.”

The manager nodded. “That is correct.”

“You're not that blogger from yesterday,” Finn informed Wyatt. “I mistakenly thought you were that blogger from yesterday.”

“He's a private investigator, Lyle.”

The band had given up on their lead singer and ended the song they were playing. The guitar player cracked open a bottle of beer. The drummer climbed on a Segway and rolled over to watch the groupies building the giant papier-­mâché head.

Finn put his hands on Wyatt's shoulders and stared deep into his eyes. His hair smelled fantastic.

“You have my full and undivided attention,” he said.

“Thank you,” Wyatt said. “How late were you up here last night?”

“Byron!” Finn waved at the drummer. “Can I ride your Segway, Byron?”

The drummer rolled over and helped Finn onto the Segway.

“So I just, like, lean forward to go?” Finn said. He turned to Wyatt. “I concentrate better when my brain is in a dynamic state.”

He shot off, spun around, shot back over. The groupies whooped and clapped. Finn beamed.

Wyatt could see he needed to get Finn offstage, away from an audience, if he wanted to have anything that resembled a real conversation with him.

“Lyle,” he said, “can we go outside and talk in private?”

“Why?” Finn shot off again. “Privacy is piracy! Anything I say to you I can say to the whole beautiful universe!”

The groupies whooped and clapped.

“If you're thinking we might trade jobs,” Wyatt told Dixon as they watched Finn zip past, “you can forget about that.”

“I've been doing this for twenty-­three years,” Dixon said. He shook his head, bewildered. “Lyle! Please surrender the Segway!”

Finn did a few more figure eights, then looped back over. He followed Wyatt downstairs and out to one of the loading docks. Finn looked around—­for an audience, presumably. When he found one lacking, he sat down with his back against the wall and turned his face up to the warm October sun.

“So you're a private investigator?” Finn said. “Right on.”

“Is the kilt comfortable,” Wyatt said, “or is it just the thing you do?”

“My shtick?” Finn said. “It's both. Now it is. It started out because I was tired of getting my ass kicked in high school.”

“You figured wearing a kilt in high school would stop you from getting your ass kicked?”

Finn looked more his actual age in this light. Wyatt could see the wrinkles, the fine crosshatching.

“I figured if I was gonna get my ass kicked every day in high school anyway, because the jocks thought I was some weirdo, this weird arty weirdo, I might as well go full-­on, full-­out weirdo, you know?”

“How did that go?”

Finn cupped his hands in front of him. “According to the Vedas, if one sows goodness, one reaps goodness.”

“So here's the deal,” Wyatt said. “Somebody broke into the Land Run and turned it upside down. Literally. Did you happen to notice anything suspicious last night, late?”

“No way! The Land Run?” Finn sprang to his feet. “I love that place, man. I love playing there. The energy is phenomenal. We played our very first show there. You know, the first show that wasn't in, like, somebody's basement. No way, man! The Land Run?”

Wyatt tried again. “Last night. Did you see anything at all? The windows in your warehouse look right down on the back of the Land Run.”

“I was in back most of the night, at the kiln. Clay is the one truly honest artistic medium. Earth, hands, fire. What I'm into now, I use clay to create functional erotic art.”

“Say no more,” Wyatt said. Please.

“They're
not
dildos. I find it deeply offensive when ­people call them that.”

“Lyle.”

“Do you know what Filipino sailors do for the pleasure of their female sexual partners? They're called
bolitas.
They make incisions in their penis and insert tiny metal ball bearings.”

“Lyle.”

“What?”

Wyatt put his hands on Finn's shoulders. “Did you see or hear anything last night?”

“I don't think so. No. Wait.” He put his hands on Wyatt's shoulders. “You don't think it's me, do you?”

“What?”

“The Land Run is just on the other side of the fence. What if whoever broke in there really meant to break in
here
and they just got the building wrong? It's starting to freak me out, man. What if, you know, this is all about me?”

Wyatt suspected that when you were a rock star, it was always all about you.

He eased out from beneath Finn's hands. “I think you're good,” he said.

Wyatt made his way back up the alley between the Land Run and the warehouse. Candace's nearest neighbor to the east, on the other side of the vacant lot, was a place that sold discount cigarettes. Wyatt walked over and went inside. The guy behind the counter, an older Latino man packing cartons of Parliaments into a box, nodded to him.

“Hello, my friend,” he said. “What can I do for you?”

The guy's smile was friendly but guarded. Wyatt guessed that the discount-­cigarette business was not exactly as pure as the driven snow. Wyatt explained what had happened last night at the Land Run. He asked the guy if he'd heard or seen anything.

The guy pondered and then shook his head. “I am afraid not, my friend.”

Wyatt wasn't shocked. He thanked the guy and walked out to his car. In the parking lot behind the Land Run, he heard two voices he couldn't quite make out—­one quietly angry, one quietly angrier. Wyatt squeezed back through the hole in the fence, made his way up the dirt path, and peeked around the corner. Lyle Finn was now standing on the loading dock of the warehouse with Dixon, his manager.

“You better believe me, Lyle!” the manager said. He went inside, slamming the door behind him.

Finn closed his eyes and pressed his hands together as if he were praying. After a few seconds, he opened his eyes and kicked the door. He kicked it again.

“You better believe
me
!” he said.

Interesting,
Wyatt thought.

 

J
ulianna got to work late. She planned to leave early. While shuttling between the hip replacement behind curtain number four and the hysterectomy behind curtain number nine, she schemed. Diarrhea again? Ben, knowing Ben, would demand to see a stool sample. The funeral of a loved one? No. Ben, under the guise of sympathy, would be certain to pry. He would question the last-­minute notice. He would ask her when she'd return. He might chat up Donna and discover that Julianna no longer had any loved ones.

“How are you feeling, Mr. Bell?” she asked the hip replacement. An old man whose new body part would survive far longer than the rest of him.

“It hurts a little,” he said. Julianna was unsure if he was smiling or grimacing.

“I know it must,” she said.

He seemed warmed by the glow of her concern. “Thank you,” he said.

For what, exactly? ­People said the strangest things when they first stumbled from the mists of anesthesia.

Julianna had gone to nursing school because she thought caring for others might give her the kind of peace that getting high every afternoon did not. And the state had paid her way, room and board included. Julianna's test scores in college had been excellent, either despite or because of all the pot-­smoking.

Her biggest surprise, once she became a nurse, was how talented she was. How talented in certain ways. She recognized connections that others did not, and her intuitive leaps were generally correct. And without even trying she was able to make her patients feel as if she really cared for them. Wasn't that, at the end of the day, just as good as the real thing?

Ben ambushed her in the break room. He wore special sneakers that never squeaked—­Julianna was convinced of it.

“Julianna,” he said. “We need to talk.”

“Sure.”

He tapped his iPad and frowned. Tapped and frowned. She knew she was in deep shit.

“I'm sorry I was late, Ben,” she said. “I had a rocky night.”

“The diarrhea.”

“Yes.”

“Julianna.”

“Yes.”

“I'm concerned. May I be perfectly candid? I feel as if certain patterns are emerging again.”

“Can we talk about this later, Ben? I just got a call from my neighbor. Apparently ONG was doing work on the block, digging up a gas line to repair it or something, and they accidentally let my dog out of the yard.”

Ben looked up from his iPad. He was a dog person. Julianna knew this about him.

“You have a dog?” he said.

“A Lab mix. Candy. She's a rescue.”

“You shouldn't keep her in the yard,” Ben said. “Dogs are den dwellers. They like to be indoors, surrounded by the scents of their pack. They're much safer and happier indoors.”

Julianna was already exhausted by this conversation.

“I don't have a fucking dog, Ben,” she said. “But I have to go. It's only an hour early.”

He pursed his lips with deep disapproval. He stood between her and the door. Julianna weighed her options. She could threaten to knee him in the balls, or she could really put the fear of God in him.

“Let me get this straight, Ben,” she said. “You want to have this conversation without a representative from HR present? Because I have to say I feel very uncomfortable about that.”

His eyes widened. Then narrowed. But what could he say? Those who were sticklers for rules had to submit when the rules stickled them back.

He stepped aside. “Of course.”

“Thank you.”

“Julianna?” She was almost out the door. “I'm going to schedule you in ER the rest of the month.”

She turned back. “ER? I haven't worked ER in two years.”

“Phil is on paternity leave. They need a floater for the overnight.”

Ben's beard parted: two rows of tiny white teeth, a smile, victorious. Overnights in the emergency room were often hellish, the worst punishment he had the authority to unilaterally inflict upon her. Julianna didn't care. She had to go.

“Sure,” she said.

She made it home a little after six and took the turkey out of the oven. Just in time. The skin was beginning to blacken. She set the pan on the counter. A second later the smoke detector shrieked. Julianna had to open windows and wave a dish towel until it stopped.

She peeled and boiled the potatoes. She knew how to make mashed potatoes, but the gravy came from Whole Foods, and the apple pie, too. Would Crowley notice? Care? Julianna doubted it. She suspected that despite what he claimed, the very least of Crowley's objectives for this evening was a home-­cooked meal. What he really wanted: to test her, to play with her, to bat at her with a finger until she either showed her claws or scampered away in fright.

Maybe he thought, if he played his cards right, she would have sex with him. Maybe he imagined a dinner that ended with her pressed up against the wall like the woman with the long braid, her head tilted back and throat bared, Crowley's hand between her legs.

Julianna poured the store-­bought gravy into a saucepan and turned the heat to simmer. In the bedroom she changed from her scrubs into jeans and a fitted tee, a blouse over the tee, black leather boots with two-­inch heels. Not enough height to make up the difference between her and Crowley, but better than nothing. She tried the blouse buttoned, unbuttoned. She left it unbuttoned.

She felt safe enough. Julianna hadn't told anyone about this dinner, but Crowley would have to assume she had. There was no way she'd invite an ex-­con into her home without taking at least minimal precautions. She couldn't be
that
crazy a bitch.

How many times while she was growing up, Julianna wondered, had she sprawled on Genevieve's bed and watched her sister get ready for a date? Genevieve: fresh from the shower, nose to nose with her own reflection in the mirror above her dresser as she squeezed the eyelash curler tight. A turban made from a towel, her bare shoulders still jeweled with moisture, the Talking Heads or Maria McKee on the boom box.

Genevieve never spent hours and hours primping like some of the girls Julianna knew later in college. Genevieve was lazy, always running late, and—­most important—­she had no need to primp. Her natural beauty could be adjusted but not improved. The eyelash curler, mascara, a swipe of lipstick—­that was it. Julianna had inherited this same minimalist approach, even though, especially now, nearing forty, a little foundation would not have killed her. As Donna at work had pointed out to her a few times. As in,
You've got nice skin, girl, but.

She put on mascara. Lipstick only a half shade darker than her own lips. The doorbell dinged. Julianna checked the time. She was not expecting Crowley for another ten minutes. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised. The games had begun.

At the door she took two breaths, steady, and then put her eye to the peephole. She froze.

DeMars.

Every light in her house was on. Her car was in the driveway. The doorbell dinged again. She opened the door.

“Detective,” she said, and smiled. “What a surprise.”

“Look at you.”

“At me?”

He smiled back at her. His mind kept working. Julianna had never known it to stop.

“Be careful, Detective,” she said. “You're on thin ice.”

“You look nice. You always look nice. This evening you look a different kind of nice.”

“Well played.”

“I been married a long time, Juli.” He smoothed his silver-­flecked goatee, striking a pose, and then chuckled.

Her heart raced, each beat stumbling up against the one ahead. If Crowley arrived while DeMars was still here, Julianna would never see either one of them again. That, and she didn't know what else would happen.

“Come on in,” she said.

“You sure?”

“I'm sure.”

“But you've got plans for the evening.”

“Do I? DeMars. Ask if you're going to ask.”

“You have a date,” he said, palms up, “then that's none of my business.”

He could tell that her heart was racing. Her cheeks were probably flushed. The fresh mascara, the boots. Did a part of DeMars suspect that all this had something to do with Crowley? Probably so. To be a detective, to see all the things he saw on a daily basis, he had to suspect the very worst in ­people.

Julianna didn't want to lie to him. Not in the state she was in. You had to be at the top of your game to get a lie past DeMars.

“You are correct,” she said. “That's none of your business.”

He chuckled again and handed her a slip of paper. “You need to answer your phone,” he said. “I called you a ­couple of times.”

Julianna took the slip of paper and unfolded it. On it, in DeMars's steady hand, was written a phone number and a name:
“Mary Hilger Hall.”
At first the name meant nothing to Julianna, and then she realized who it was: the woman on Facebook who'd posted the Food Alley photo from the '86 state fair.

“Oh,” she said.

“I talked to her,” DeMars said. “Just for a minute. Didn't tell her much. Didn't think you'd want me to. She said go ahead and give her a call. She's not sure she can help, but she said she'll try.”

Julianna's love for DeMars at that instant almost broke her into pieces. But she didn't have time for that. She stole a glance at his watch. Crowley would be there any minute, any second.

“Come on in,” she said again. “Do you have time for a beer?”

Such a transparent bluff. She was ashamed of herself. Her only hope was that DeMars really did think she had a date tonight and that was why she wanted him gone.

“You be good, now,” he said.

He dipped his head so she could give him a peck on the cheek and then walked to his car. Julianna watched him drive away. DeMars had just turned the corner when she heard the rattle of Crowley's truck—­from up the block, the opposite direction.

It was too late for her to go back inside. Crowley parked on the street and lumbered across the lawn toward her.

He had his hair in a ponytail instead of down. His plaid shirt was pressed. As he climbed the two steps to her porch, his blue eyes moved over her—­from her boots to her face, then all the way back down to her boots again.

“Waiting out front for me,” he said. “Eager beaver.”

Yes, she felt safe enough. Julianna told herself that if Crowley planned to do her harm, he wouldn't have driven his own truck. The neighbors would take note. Someone might jot down the license plate. Crowley could see it was that kind of neighborhood.

“You're late,” she said. And thank God he was.

“I'm whatever the hell I want to be,” he said amiably. He tipped his chin up. The wiry gray goatee, a strong jaw. Julianna glimpsed, beneath all the sag and crease, the young man he'd once been—­the ruins of an ancient civilization half buried in the jungle. Crowley's nostrils flared. “I smell something tasty.”

But
was
it his own truck? Julianna realized she didn't know.

“Let's go inside and eat,” she said.

She followed him in. She shut the door behind her but didn't lock it. Crowley glanced at the dining-­room table, set for two, and moved past into the living room. He dropped heavily onto the sofa. Letting Julianna know, again, that all this was on his terms, not hers.

“You got any whiskey?” he said. “Beer if you don't.”

She took a tumbler from the cupboard and filled it with Maker's Mark. Crowley took a sip.

“That'll do,” he said.

Julianna felt surprisingly calm as she carved the turkey. Her heart had run itself ragged during the conversation with DeMars. It took a breather now, coasting.

The kitchen opened onto the living room. Crowley sat and watched her carve.

“You know what that reminds me of?” he said. “One time in the yard down at McAlester. This old boy took a shank to his little buddy and just split him up. I mean it. But did it calm as can be. Just another day at the office.”

He smiled at her. Julianna knew what he was doing. She scooped potatoes onto his plate and ladled gravy. Green beans. A roll.

“White or dark meat?”

“As long as it's juicy.”

“How do you know I won't poison you?” she said.

Crowley's gaze, moving around her living room, came back around to her fast. Julianna smiled at him.

She carried their plates into the dining room and sat down. After a minute she heard the sofa springs creak. After another minute Crowley entered the dining room, carrying the bottle of Maker's Mark, his glass, an extra glass. He sat down across from her. Without a word he snapped his cloth napkin open and started eating.

“Tell me what you remember about my sister,” Julianna said.

He shook his head, mystified. “Turkey with no stuffing.”

“I forgot.”

“You make this gravy yourself?”

“No.”

He was a surprisingly well-­mannered diner. Small bites, mouth closed when he chewed, elbows off the table. An occasional dab of the napkin to his lips. Julianna ate a little of the mashed potatoes and then put her fork down.

“Will you tell me what you remember about my sister?”

“Slow down, now.” He reached for the bourbon and refilled his glass. He filled half of the glass Julianna supposed was meant for her. “Let's get to know each other.”

His eyes were so blue. Piercing? Not exactly. The effect was more subtle than that. Like he was leaning in toward her when in fact he was sitting still.

“I don't want to know you,” she said.

“Tell me a secret 'bout you that nobody else in the world knows. Nobody but you and me.”

“No.”

He nodded at the glass he'd filled for her. She hesitated, then lifted the glass and drank the bourbon down in one swallow. She held Crowley's blue-­eyed gaze and waited for the booze to land. When it did, heat spread out to her farthest edges. A massive splash. A fat kid doing cannonballs in a pool. She laughed.