Voodoo Moon (13 page)

"You're probably right."

We finished up our pitas and started on our last cups of coffee. "So you going to see him?"

"Who?" I said.

"Sandy's dad."

"I'll
           
try."

"If you learn anything, will you tell me about it?"

"Sure."

"He really is innocent."

"Between you and Dr. Williams, I'm beginning to believe it
."

"Really?"

"Well, maybe a little bit, anyway."

A police cruiser swung into the parking lot. I could see Susan in the windshield. She looked serious, serious but beautiful. You couldn't see the scar from this distance.

She got out of the cruiser and strode inside. She came directly to our table.

She nodded to Iris Rutledge. "Hi, Iris. Don't buy anything from this guy."

"Don't worry, Susan. I already had him checked out with the Better Business Bureau. They said buyer beware."

"Everything going all right?" I said.

"I just had a few follow-up questions."

"Well, that works out fine," Iris said. "I need to get back home, anyway."

She stood up. Extended her hand. Then reached in the back of her jeans and took out a thin leather wallet. "Here's my card."

"Thanks."

"Call me."

"I will."

"'Bye, Susan."

"'Bye, Iris."

"You want some coffee?" I said to Susan.

"She's a sweetie."

"She sure seems to be."

"Just
black'll
do. I've got a long night ahead of me."

I got a refill and a cup for her. The place was starting to fill up. The novelty had worn off the crime scene. Yellow crime scene tape is bedazzling for only so long.

When I got back, she was gone. She reappeared a few minutes later. "Pit stop."

"I could use one of those myself."

The two urinals were busy. Two teenage boys peed and talked about the murder.

"Drug deal," one of them said.

"That what the cops said?"

"No. But I'll bet your ass that's what it was."

"They said he was old. Maybe he was a Mob guy or something."

"If he was, somebody else is gonna die."

"How come?"

"They don't let you run around and kill Mob guys like that."

"Who doesn't?"

"The Mob, you dumb ass. The Mob don't let you."

"He was a mobster," I said, when I got back to my table.

"Who was?"

"The dead guy in my motel room."

"Mafia, you mean?"

I laughed and told her what I'd heard in the john.

"Oh, that'll go on for weeks. Everybody in
town'll
have his own theory about who did it, and why
."
Then, "He was a little more interesting than just your run-of-the-mill private eye."

"Oh?"

"I've got a few friends in Chicago, too. I had them run his name through the crime computer."

"Anything interesting?"

"He was arrested for letting his gun permit expire and he was arrested for drunk driving. Found guilty on both counts and both were enough to get his license lifted both times. He had to reapply to get reinstated. Technically, he was out of work for twelve months following each arrest."

"He doesn't exactly sound like a death row kind of guy."

She sipped her coffee. "It's actually cold in here. I've got goose bumps. Look."

"You're wearing short sleeves."

She held her arms out. "Feel them."

She wasn't kidding. Her slender arms were covered with coarse little bumps.

I sat there feeling my groin stir. Now I had a new item to add to my list of turn-
ons
. Goose bumps.

She withdrew her arms.

"You weren't kidding
."
I was wearing a windbreaker and a long-sleeved shirt. It was time for gallantry.

I stood up, took my jacket off, slid it around her shoulders. It covered up the small .38 she wore hooked to the side of her jeans. "That's very sweet. Thank you."

I sat down. "So tell me what you came here to tell me."

"I told you about him losing his license
."

"Yeah, but you wouldn't drive over here for that
."

She laughed. "I thought it was Tandy who read minds. But it's you." More coffee. "Boy, that feels good going down." Then, "The DA there was prepared twice to bring charges against him for extortion."

"Blackmail?"

"Exactly."

"And the charges were dropped?"

"At the last minute, both people asked that the matter be tabled."

"You learn why?"

"Nope. But presumably they decided it wasn't worth dragging their secrets through court."

"So now we have to figure out why he was here."

She nodded. "You don't have any ideas, I suppose?"

"No, afraid I don't."

"Your friends are from Chicago and he was from Chicago."

"Last time I looked, Chicago was only about four and a half hours right down the interstate. I drive in there at least once a month. So do a lot of people."

"True enough. But the river doesn't flow that often in the opposite direction. Not many Chicago people come here. I mean, we have some nice skyscrapers and a big new airport and a lot of Picasso statuary not too far away, but somehow we still don't get many
Chicagoites
out here."

"'ans.'"

"Pardon?"

"Chicago
ans
. Not
Chicago
ites
."

"And there's a fifty-fifty that the
Wests
and
Kibbe
being out here at the same time was a coincidence."

She made a smirk of her lovely lips. "You really believe that?"

"Pretty much."

"That would be some coincidence."

"More coffee?"

"No, thanks. I need to get back and see how things are going."

"If there's anything I can do."

"I know. You'll be glad to help. Here's your jacket back, Robert." She stopped by a few tables before she left. In small towns, police chiefs are celebrities subject to election. They learn to work a room the way politicians do.

I finished my coffee slowly, staring out the window at the cars streaming past in the night. A kind of lonesomeness came over me then. It didn't tie to anyone or anywhere—no special person or place I missed—and it was certainly a familiar feeling so it didn't startle or scare me. It was a late-night train-whistle loneliness; a sad-barking-dog-at-midnight loneliness; a hobo loneliness that I had first found in the books of Jack London way back in grade school. I used to think this marked me as special, but the older I get I know it's something we all feel sometimes, that sense of melancholy and dislocation we can't explain but can only endure, that inexplicable ache that lets you know you really do have a soul after all, despite what the skeptics say, because the pain is spiritual and not merely mental. The closest approximations are the paintings of Edward Hopper, those lonesome faceless souls in those lonesome midnight cafes in those mysterious Midwestern midnight towns of his.

I walked back to the motel.

I
was given another room—this time on the second floor. I didn't see Tandy or Laura or Noah Chandler. I went up and tried to watch some TV. The Cedar Rapids stations used
Kibbe's
death as the lead. Murder, as it should be, is still a big thing out here.

Letterman came on. There was a young actress I fell in love with before the first break. She reminded me of my wife was why. A quiet elegance, and yet a certain quiet smart-ass quality, too. Playful, in a kitten-soft sort of way.

I turned the lights off, stripped out of my clothes, and crawled
into bed. The semis moved through the night like dinosaurs. I wondered where they were going. I'd always wanted to drive one of those big rigs. Places with names like Cheyenne and Red Rock and Yuma had sounded exciting as hell when I was in high school. I'd had a stepfather I didn't like much, and a girlfriend who couldn't or wouldn't love me, and an imagination that told me a town called Yuma was exactly what a kid like me was looking for.

I slept. Not a good sleep. A restless, tossing one. Not nightmares. But those lonesome dreams where a girl is rejecting you, or somebody you considered a friend has suddenly turned on you. An extension of that inexplicable lonesomeness, I suppose. The smart answer was probably that when my father died my twelfth year, I felt betrayed and abandoned and never quite recovered from that feeling. He'd been my best friend. But I'm too smart to believe in smart answers. The dreams of desertion were probably inspired by events far more complicated than my father dying. Anyway, I get tired of the modern tendency to blame everything on parents.

The knock woke me quickly. I sat up and reached for the gun I kept on the nightstand. Bureau training is hard to break. I grabbed my pants and tugged them on, managing to stub my toe against the bureau as I did so. I had to swear real, real quietly.

I tiptoed to the curtain and peeked out.

Tandy stood there hugging a bottle of wine. She looked cute and sweet and sexy and scared. The night was mauve and alive with the mercury vapor lights of the parking lot and the blowing dust and cosmic seeds the prairie winds were whipping across the open spaces. I couldn't smell the impending rain in here, but I could feel it.

I went and opened the door.

"Y
ou forget about me, Robert?"

"No. Huh-uh." Yawn.

"God, you did, didn't you? You were asleep, weren't you? I told you I'd sleep in your bed tonight and you
forgot
me?"

I'd forgotten how personally Tandy took everything. I plucked the bottle of wine from her hand. "I really appreciate you delivering the wine, though, young lady."

"Very funny. God."

"I'm sorry. I was tired. I fell asleep."

"It's barely eleven
."
And pushed past me, inside.

She pulled out the chair and sat down. "Your room doesn't smell as bad as ours."

"I'm sure the management will be glad to hear that."

"It's a good thing you're cute because otherwise I'd be pissed right now. I really would."

"I fell asleep. I'm sorry."

"You have so many women throwing themselves at you that you forget when somebody tries to be tender and affectionate toward you?"

"How about some wine?"

"You could at least say you were sorry."

"I did. Twice."

"Well, then, you could at least say it again."

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. How's that?"

"I even took a shower and put on special panties."

"I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry."

W
hich is how it went for the first fifteen minutes, the banter and her hurt feelings.

By the time I went into the bathroom and came back with two plastic glasses, she'd calmed down. I poured us
vino
and we drank, sitting up in bed, MTV on real low on the tube.

"Noah was pretty drunk tonight."

"Good for him."

"He got into it with Laura again."

"About getting married?"

"Yeah. In a weird way, I feel sorry for him. He's a jerk but he loves her. He really does."

"I kind of got that impression."

"I wish you loved
me
that much."

"Well, I wish
you
loved
me
that much, too."

"Really?"

"Well, sort of."

"You dipshit."

"Thank you."