by Ed Gorman
But still, there were those locals who insisted that he had not only survived but had returned in another guise. This was at least in the realm—however unlikely—of the possible.
The supernatural stories were another matter. Rick Hennessy wasn't the first person to claim that he had been possessed by the malignant spirit of Renard. At least three others accused of murder had also blamed Renard's hardworking ghost for their troubles.
A sanitized version of Renard's life story (wanton mental-hospital voodoo orgies not included) was told to local students at Halloween. And a Hollywood producer, no less (Angels and Tramps, Sisters in Sin, and My Bed or Yours?) had visited here twice, both times discussing at length the Paul Renard story. He was especially interested in the "wanton mental-hospital voodoo orgies," a descriptive phrase that he, as a matter of fact, had come up with. So far, the cap was still on the lens.
"Fascinating, isn't it?" the librarian said when I brought the file back to the front desk. She was a nice-looking woman in a navy blouse and bias-cut print skirt.
"He was a busy boy."
"You think there's any chance he's still alive?"
"He'd be seventy-two years old now."
She gave a little shudder. She was fiftyish and very cute. "I guess I just like scaring myself. I still love ghost stories. And I always watch the horror movies with my two boys." Then, "But you know, a lot of people still believe that he's still here somewhere."
"Just wandering around spooking people?"
She gave me an impish smile. "You picked yourself an interesting case to work on, Mr. Payne."
SIX
I raised my hand and was about to knock when I heard Tandy's voice say, from behind the motel room door, "Just go fuck yourself, Laura."
"Oh, that's nice. I'm holding all this together and you're telling me to go fuck myself."
"Don't play the martyr. If you're holding this together, it's for your own sake. Not mine. You like all this bullshit."
I figured I'd do them a favor by knocking. I knocked. Tandy opened the door. "I'll bet you heard us screaming."
I smiled. "Just the 'fuck off' part."
"Oh, good," Laura said behind Tandy. "He didn't hear the 'stick it up your ass' part."
"Now, that would've shocked me."
Tandy waved me in. "Our secret is out, I'm afraid. My sister is an arrogant, cynical, selfish bitch. Nothing personal, of course."
"This is just like pro wrestling," I said.
"The diva is throwing a diva fit," Laura said. "The cable folks want her to do a couple of teasers about the ghostly spirit of Paul Renard. And she won't do it."
"We don't even know if there is a ghostly spirit," Tandy said.
"That's why I won't do it. If I honestly believed that Rick was possessed, then I wouldn't mind doing it."
"You want me to show you our last Nielsen, babe?" Laura said.
"Don't call me babe."
"Lowest rating we ever got."
"The ratings'll get even lower if I start faking stuff."
"They can't get any lower. Babe."
The motel room was identical to mine. Badly scuffed brown outdoor carpeting. Heavily glued but surprisingly spindly desk, a small water-scarred bureau, bed. And paintings of horses done by somebody who didn't know much about anatomy, equine or otherwise. There was a submarine-like darkness and dampness to it, a netherworld atmosphere—with the door closed at least—where salesmen battled loneliness and adulterers battled guilt and drifters battled those stray dangerous impulses that came on with meth or coke.
"You know a teenager named Emily Cunningham?" I said.
"Sandy's cousin," Laura said.
"She was over at Rutledge's office. Says she's going to cooperate. What's that supposed to mean?"
"Sandy supposedly told Emily something right before she died," Tandy said. "But Emily has been reluctant to tell the Rutledge woman what it was."
Tandy looked down at her sister, who sat on the edge of the bed. "I hate you, Laura."
"Well, I hate you."
"Go to hell."
"No, you go to hell."
Tandy sat down next to her and they were soon enough entangled in girly white arms, giggling and sort of half-assed crying and saying, "Oh, I'm sorry."
"No, I'm sorry."
And I could see them in that moment as little girls, sweet and pretty and smart, making up over some idiotic fight they'd had.
"You think we'll ever be adults?" Tandy asked me.
"Probably not," I said. "And I won't, either. Very few people ever make it."
"I'll be an adult before she is," Tandy said.
"Huh-uh," Laura said. And playfully nudged her with an elbow. This was their makeup routine, apparently.
"I think the chief has a crush on you," Tandy said.
"I doubt that," I said.
"Yes, she does," Laura said. "The way she kept looking at you."
"She was setting me up."
"Setting you up for what?" Tandy said, now genuinely interested in the subject of Chief Susan Charles.
"I'm not sure. But she asked me to go bowling tonight."
"Wow," Laura said, "talk about hot dates. And maybe the malt shop afterward?"
"She wants to pick your brain," Tandy said.
"Right," I said. "I just wonder what she's so curious about. The only thing I can think of is that she thinks I have something that takes suspicion away from Rick Hennessy. She's convinced there's no other legitimate suspect."
"Maybe she thinks Tandy can prove that Rick is actually possessed."
I shook my head. "This is a very no-nonsense woman. No room for the occult in that beautiful head of hers."
"Then she really must think we can screw up her case for her," Laura said.
"How did your interview with Rick go, by the way?" I said.
Tandy shook her head. "He wasn't cooperative at all. He keeps denying he murdered Sandy but it's like he does everything he can to look guilty."
A knock. And moments later Noah Chandler graced our lives. "Boy, what a seedy bunch you three are."
Tandy smiled; Laura rolled her eyes.
Chandler said, "Well, Payne, you'd be proud of me."
"I doubt that," I said.
Chandler looked at Tandy. "He hates me. Thinks I'm just a Hollywood glamour boy. Nobody home upstairs. Tell him that I once read nearly a hundred pages of Thomas Wolfe."
"He did," Laura said, "and it took him a year and a half."
He sat on the edge of the overstuffed armchair and lit a cigarette. "I hope nobody minds."
"I think you're supposed to ask that before you light up, Noah," Tandy said.
He grinned. He was posing for a publicity shot. "Why stand on formality?" He took a drag, exhaled. "There's a girl named Heather Douglas. Her boyfriend dumped her for Sandy. A guy at the gas station where they're putting on some new tires for me—remember I said something felt funny yesterday, Laura? It was the tires, worn right down to cord—anyway, I told this kid why we were out here, working on the Hennessy case and all, and he told me about this Heather Douglas. Said she'd really gone crazy when her boyfriend dumped her. Said she threatened to kill Sandy quite a few times in front of several witnesses. He said two or three people even went to Chief Charles. Said the chief interviewed Heather a couple of times but decided there wasn't any real point in pursuing it. She had her killer—Rick." Another deep inhale. Exhale. The smoke blue and lazy on the shadowy damp air. "Sounds like I scooped our detective here."
"I know you're still working on your profile, Robert," Laura said, "but is there any chance the killer could be a girl?"
"Sure," I said.
"She might be worth checking out," Laura said.
"Definitely."
"Did I hear somebody say 'Thank you, Noah, for that fine detective work?'" Chandler said.
"Not that I know of," Laura said.
"Very funny," he said.
I stood up. "I'm going down to my room."
"I'll
be glad to go with you to check out this Heather chick," Chandler said.
"No, thanks."
"But all Great Detectives have sidekicks," he said. "Holmes and Watson. Nero Wolfe and Archie. Mike Hammer and Velda. I'm a mystery buff."
"He doesn't want you tagging along, for God's sake, Noah," Laura said. "So just give it a rest."
I felt sorry for him. I didn't like him—God only knew how he'd gotten the producer's job—but Laura's contempt was withering.
I said, "You did some good work, Noah. The gas station guy, I mean. Thanks. I appreciate it."
"You hear that, Laura?" Chandler said. "You hear that?"
"I heard," she said wearily. "He's just trying to be nice, you moron."
"Well," I said, feeling even sorrier for big dumb Noah Chandler. "I guess I'll be going."
From a quick look around I'd sensed somebody had been in here. I'd called the desk to talk to Pete, the handyman. He was always around. Maybe he'd seen somebody. Ten minutes later the phone rang.
"Hi. This is the front desk." Friendly female voice.
"Hi."
"Did Pete find you?"
"Nope."
Then, "He's down the hall. Excuse me for a second." She was back within a minute. "He's coming down to your room right away."
As I was talking, I noticed the clasp on my suitcase affixed to the strap. I always belted the strap on the fourth loop. It was now belted to the second loop. And the empty metal waste can next to the desk had been knocked over. I'm enough of a neat freak to notice things like this. You will find no room of mine with a waste can on its side. Somebody had been in here.
"Send him down."
"He's a nice guy."
"I'm sure he is."
"His son, he just got laid off over to this factory in Davenport. Pete's real worried about him."
I had to admire her loyalty. She was going to make me feel sorry for Pete even if I didn't want to.
"So please don't chew him out."
"I'm going to pistol-whip him."
"What?"
"And then I'm going to stick straight pins underneath his fingernails. And then I'm going to douse him with gasoline and set him on fire: ."
"Smart-ass."
"Pete'll be fine. I just need to talk to him is all."
Pete, when he came, was dressed in bib OskKoshes with a flannel shirt underneath and a black-and-yellow Hawkeye ball cap on top. He was old enough to have wattles and rheumy, faded eyes and a bit of palsy in his left hand. Or maybe he was just scared. He said, "I just want to get one thing clear." He said this before actually stepping inside. "I been working here ten years—after I retired out to the tire company—and I've never stolen one thing in all the time I been here."
"Fine."
"Stuff people leave layin' around, a dishonest fella'd have a heyday. Wristwatches and diamond necklaces and big fat wads of cash. I admit I've daydreamed about it a few times. But I've never taken anything."
"I believe you."
He smiled. "Good. Helen said she thought you was a nice guy."
The door was open. A breeze came in, smoky with autumn. It made me think of growing up in a small town outside Iowa City. Riding horses through the cornfields of fall, all the way up to the timberland where there were Indian burial mounds and a winding river so clear you could see the fish weaving along its bottom.
"I just wondered if you saw anybody around my room."
"That's what I wanted to tell you, this heavyset guy leaving your room. He got into a green car."
"Balding guy?"
Thought a moment. "Yeah, right. Balding."
"You happen to notice the plates on his car?"
"Sure. They're the first thing I look at. I got kind of a thing about license plates, I guess. Always have had. My dad used to nail all his license plates to the wall of the garage. By the time he died, he had quite a collection."
"I'll bet."
"The garage burned down right after he died. Never did figure out what started the fire."
"How about the plates on the green car?"
"Illinois."
"You're sure?"
"One thing I'm sure about, mister, is license plates."
Not too difficult to figure out what had happened. The heavyset guy, whoever he is, waits till Pete heads back to the office, and then uses some kind of tool to get in my room. Obviously, a pro.
I picked up the phone again. Pete looked nervous. "It's Payne again. You have anybody currently registered here from Illinois?"
She checked. "No." Then, "How's it going with Pete?"
"Just fine. Thanks." I hung up and turned to Pete. "You wouldn't happen to remember the plate numbers, would you?"
"'Fraid not. For one thing, my memory ain't so hot these days. And for another thing, it never even crossed my mind."
"I'm sure it didn't. Thanks, Pete."
"That's all, huh?"
"That's all. Thanks again."
He latched his thumbs on either side of his bib straps and looked around the room and said, "You'd really be surprised about what people leave right out in plain sight. It's almost like they want you to steal it, you know that? Just like they're beggin' you, in fact."
The knock came about a half hour later. I was mindlessly channel-surfing. They had a dish antenna. On one of the talk shows a neo-Nazi named Fred goose-stepped up and down the audience aisle until an audience member attacked him. A good-looking Wall Street woman told me how to invest my money. A very young Roy Rogers sang a song to his horse Trigger. A KKK member with a real bad complexion told a talk show host that "good ordinary white men" were the most discriminated-against minority group in the USA. And a voluptuous woman in a cowboy hat and snug-fitting and very spangly cowgal shirt assured me that even I of the lead foot could learn all the latest line dance moves right in the shamed darkness of my living room. I just kept surfing. Maybe I was looking for God—as opposed, I mean, to all the TV ministers so eager for my bankbook.
I was grateful for the knock.
I put the surfer stick away and went and answered the door and there stood Tandy West.
"Still a channel surfer, I hear."
The door, apparently, wasn't real thick.
"Yeah. I couldn't decide between wrestling and women who got probed while in the hands of aliens."
"Maybe that's what I need, Robert," and I could see she was only half-kidding. "A little alien probing."
The psychologists and psychiatrists who had examined her over the years trying to determine the authenticity of her "gift" had also noted that she was manic-depressive. Severely so. She had long been a Lithium baby.
"You want to come in?"
"I was hoping you'd take me for a ride."
"Anywhere in particular?"
"Back to the asylum."
"Any particular reason?"
"A couple of particular reasons. I thought I'd explain on the way."
"Long as I'm back to keep my bowling date."
"I still think she's got a crush on you."
"And I still think she just wants to pick my brain."
"How's your love life?"
I looked over at her. "You've really changed."
"I know. I'm not the virgin girl anymore." She looked out at the country road. It was late afternoon. The impending dusk was already casting long shadows and touching all the autumn foliage with dramatic life. The pumpkins in the field, orange and round as merry balloons, looked especially festive. One of nature's little jokes, I suppose, to make the season of death so seductive.
"I'm sorry," she said. "I shouldn't have said that."
"Well, since you asked, not all that good."
"How about that rich woman you were living with?"
"Went back to her ex-husband."
"I thought he was such a bastard."
"He is."
"So you're not involved right now."
"Not by choice, unfortunately."
More staring out the window. "I either have too littl
e sex or too much."
"Right now I think I'd opt for the latter."
"Maybe you'll get lucky with the police chief tonight."
"I doubt it."
Then, "You think I could sleep in your room tonight?"
"Sure. But why?"
She turned back the cuff of her white shirtsleeve. First the left one. Then the right one. She'd done a pretty good job of it. Somebody must have found her in time and gotten her to a hospital. She had pale skinny little-girl wrists, and the razor scars were sad and lurid and ugly.
"What's that all about?" I said.
"I got real depressed a while back."
"Apparently."
"Maybe I won't want to have sex tonight."
"That's all right."
"If it gets real rough for you, I'll give you a hand job."
I smiled. "Boy, you have changed." Then, "You going to tell me about your wrists?"
She looked over at me with her sweet little waif face, glassy tears in her eyes, and shook her head.
I didn't push it.
The shadows, and the darkening sky, and the chill drop in temperature, lent the land around the burned-out asylum a forlorn quality I hadn't sensed in full daylight. The songbirds in the fading tree light were melancholy, and even the dogs down the hill near the horse meadows sounded lonely. It was true. You could almost hear the screams of those who'd died in the fire.
"You mind if I just walk around a while and not talk?"
"Fine."
"I mean alone."
"No problem."
She walked around alone. No problem. I watched a mother raccoon in a tree try to get one of her babies down from a topmost branch. The baby was swaying back and forth and making fear sounds. The mother moved with great delicacy and picked the kid up by the back of the neck and brought it back to safety. In the midst of all this desolation, it was a life-affirming act.
The moon came up. A half moon, it was, clear and radiant as the finest diamond, its luminosity ancient and brand-new at the same time, a marker of our entire brief span on this world that would never quite be ours. It was fun sometimes to think of what species would eventually replace us; sometimes, it was fun; other times, it was scary.
