by JM Gulvin
Quarrie got down and Pious got down and they could see Isaac Bowen in dress uniform leaning on the fence next to an old boy in a pair of denim overalls. Quarrie wore a Carhartt jacket with his twin-rig shoulder holsters underneath, but neither man was looking at him.
‘Something, ain’t it?’ A little sadly Pious wagged his head. ‘How a black man can be flying an airplane. Never would’ve guessed it, a damn-fool thing like that.’
The old man did not say anything, he just looked on with faint hint of color in his cheeks.
Quarrie was studying the man in uniform. ‘You Bowen?’ he said.
Isaac nodded. ‘Yes sir, I am.’ He indicated the older man. ‘This is Mr Palmer.’
They walked across the dust-blown yard to an old Ford pickup, and by the time they got there Palmer was picking Pious’s brains about the plane. Isaac got behind the wheel with Pious next to him and Quarrie on the far side. He drove them north to the woodland and the mailbox with the Bowen name.
Talkative to begin with, Isaac slipped into silence as they closed on the house. By the time they turned into the gravel driveway he was silent and the color had gone from his face.
‘You-all just hit back in the world then, did you?’ Pious asked him.
Pulling up out front of the open garage Isaac killed the engine. ‘Yes, I did.’ He looked sideways. ‘You in the service, were you?’
‘Triple volunteer like you.’ Quarrie indicated the insignia on Isaac’s sleeve. ‘Old Pious might fly an airplane these days but there was a time we were jumping out.’
Standing on the gravel driveway he could feel the heat of the breeze coming up from the south. Above them no clouds billowed, there was only the sun; a yellowed ball, it seemed to echo the yellow brick of the house.
Isaac led the way into the kitchen where he had coffee going in a new pot. He poured three cups and passed them round. Pious wandered through to the living room where he noticed the green felt table. ‘Texas Hold’em, or five-card stud?’
‘Blackjack is what it was.’ Isaac followed his gaze. ‘My dad used to play blackjack when he was first married. I guess that table is just a reminder though, because I never once saw him deal a hand. There’s an alcove underneath with chips and all, got a deck back there that’s still wrapped up.’ He looked at Quarrie. ‘Somebody shot him, that’s what you said?’
‘That’s what I figured when I saw him.’
‘So why is it the sheriff’s telling me he took the gun to himself?’
Quarrie thought about that. ‘Beats me,’ he said. Looking beyond Isaac he considered the family photograph. ‘I found marks where blood settled in his neck. That indicates post-mortem movement and he couldn’t do that by himself. Hasn’t the coroner seen the body?’
‘I don’t know,’ Isaac shrugged. ‘Nobody said.’
‘OK, I’ll check that out when we’re done.’ Quarrie considered his uniform again. ‘So how much time did you get in?’
‘In Nam you mean? Three tours.’
‘You weren’t drafted then? You volunteered? Where was it you were fighting at?’
‘No, I wasn’t drafted,’ Isaac told him. ‘I was regular Army and it was the Fishhook I was based at. Fought in the Crow’s Foot valley, places like that. Long-range recon – they liked to have me walk the point.’ Loosely he gestured. ‘Last detail ended up as a firefight sixty miles north of Saigon.’
Quarrie was still looking at the photograph.
‘Ambush from the sawgrass, had us pinned down up there with thirty-one dead and a hundred and twenty-three wounded.’
‘Your last detail huh?’ Quarrie studied him again. ‘After that you were on your way back?’
Wiping a line of perspiration from his brow, Isaac nodded. ‘Last detail of my last tour. Took the boat home to surprise my dad only, it was me got the surprise of my life instead.’
Quarrie glanced briefly at Pious. Then he looked back to where Isaac was trembling ever so slightly. ‘You OK there, Isaac?’ he said.
‘Yes, sir,’
‘You staying here at the house?’
Isaac nodded.
‘Kept it spotless, didn’t he? Your dad, I mean: stickler for that kind of thing.’
With a half-smile, Isaac nodded. ‘Yes, I suppose he was. Learned how to be like it in the army – his whole life the army; Africa then Korea, fighting in the jungles, he was always saying how easy it was for infection to set in. Kept everything clean on account of it, and he was so obsessive I guess that was one of the reasons Mom left.’
Crossing to the fireplace Pious took a long look at the photograph. ‘That your mother there?’
Isaac nodded.
‘How long ago did she leave?’
‘I guess not long after that picture was taken. Maybe a year or so – I can’t recall exactly.’
‘That your brother there with you?’ Quarrie said. ‘Where he’s at?’
At that Isaac faltered. His lips seemed to form words but none came out, as if he was just about keeping his emotions in check.
‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘That’s something else I’ve got to deal with. I can’t find him. I can’t find Ish.’ He pressed the air from his cheeks. ‘He was at Trinity, the hospital. There was a fire and …’ His voice seemed to break all over again. ‘The whole place went up and they told me a few of the patients still aren’t accounted for.’
Sinking into an armchair he looked helpless. ‘That’s why this whole thing is as bad as it is. I mean coming home from all that shit over there to find your family …’ He lifted his palms once again. ‘All anybody wants over there is family. But I come home to find I don’t seem to have one, not anymore, not unless I can find Ish.’ Tears built. He seemed to be fighting them where he sat. ‘I get off the boat after six weeks at sea and fly to Houston to go to the hospital because it’s a year since I saw Ish. I wanted to do that before I came here. I wanted to check on my brother. I wanted to see how he is. But when I get there, when I get to the hospital, I see the whole place is burned and I have to go up to a place called Bellevue. That’s Shreveport, Louisiana; and when I get there they tell me that Ish is either dead or missing. I get home here and my dad … Him and me, Dad and me …’ Eyes closed now he shook his head. ‘Well, anyway, the fact is my dad is dead and they’re telling me he killed himself.’
Blowing out his cheeks he gestured. ‘I’m sorry, but there’s no way I believe that, despite the way he was.’ He paused for a moment then he added, ‘What I mean is – the thing with my dad, he was different after Mom left. I guess that was only natural. All my life he was a little distant, and maybe that’s how he was around her. Maybe that’s why she left. But after she did – after that it was just the three of us and he was even more distant then.’
‘How do you mean?’ Quarrie said.
‘I don’t know, I guess he never said a whole lot, and I wrote him all the time but he never once answered my letters.’
Pious was staring at him with his brows knit. ‘You wrote your old man and he never wrote back?’
Isaac nodded.
‘From Nam you talking about?’
Again Isaac nodded.
Quarrie shifted to the edge of his seat. ‘But why?’ he said. ‘He used to be a soldier. He must’ve known what it’s like to be in a combat zone and how important mail from home is.’
‘You’d think so,’ Isaac said. ‘He was a soldier all his life. Got wounded a couple times. When he was in Africa he took a bayonet in the gut and it almost killed him. The fact is I wrote all the time – I’m talking three full tours and he never once wrote back.’
Fourteen
He showed them the entrance to the storm shelter, Quarrie standing in the garage with Pious at his shoulder while Isaac lifted the trapdoor.
‘I think whoever it was shot him got in this way,’ Isaac said. ‘They must’ve been staking out the house from the woods.’
Quarrie looked doubtful, head to one side and his hands in his jacket pockets. ‘Mind if we take a
look?’
Isaac told them about the panel leading to his father’s study and how to open it, then Quarrie and Pious climbed down. They walked the short passage to the storm shelter and took in the camp beds, sleeping bags, and the cans of food stacked on the shelves. From there they followed the second passage to the other door and the back side of the wood panelling. For a moment Quarrie considered it, then worked the tips of his fingers down the right-hand side as Isaac had suggested. Nothing happened. He sought another spot, pressed that and still nothing happened. Locating a third spot he tried again and still nothing happened. At the fourth attempt nothing happened but at the fifth they heard the faintest of clicks and finally the panel swung in. Quarrie cast a glance at Pious.
Inside the study they moved around the desk where Quarrie’s eye was drawn to the tiny spots of dried blood that still marked the floor. He studied the chair where it was pushed under the desk and he looked at the blotter and pen set, the empty wire in-tray.
Pious was at the gun cabinet where one of the hooks remained empty. He raised an eyebrow at the bayonet. ‘Do you figure that’s the blade he was talking about?’
Quarrie shrugged. He was considering the photographs on the shelf where Ike Bowen, a good-looking man in his younger days, gazed rather proudly back.
‘Career soldier,’ Quarrie stated. ‘All his life in the service, must’ve been a shock to the system when they told him it was time to quit.’
‘Yeah, I guess.’ Pious moved alongside him and he too cast an eye across the photos. ‘John Q,’ he said, ‘what kind of father is it that don’t answer letters written him by his son?’
‘I have no idea.’
‘Don’t make any sense.’
‘No, it don’t.’
‘So what about the brother, the hospital he was talking about?’
‘I don’t know,’ Quarrie said. ‘When he’s calmed down some I figure I’ll ask him.’
Pious looked back at the open panel. ‘Saw a few like him in Korea. Poor bastard, he’s just about holding it together.’
Crossing to the other door he looked the length of the basement corridor. ‘You got to feel for him, what with the sheriff’s detective telling him his old man took a gun to his head and you telling him that ain’t how it was.’
‘His daddy was murdered, Pious,’ Quarrie stated. ‘He was setting that chair yonder with powder burns on his head.’
‘So who’d want him dead, and how would they know about that passage?’
Quarrie shook his head. ‘They didn’t get in through the passage. When the gardener got here the kitchen door was open. I figure whoever it was they just showed up, knocked on the door and Ike Bowen answered. Could’ve been anybody – drifter, somebody watching the place as Isaac said – but whoever they were, Ike must’ve let them in.’
‘So Isaac – what’s his fixation with the passage?’
‘It’s like you said he’s just about holding it together. His old man is dead and he has no idea what happened to his brother. He ain’t thinking straight, Pious. In his condition I don’t know many who would.’
‘So what’re you going to do?’ Pious said. ‘Swing by the sheriff’s department and tell them how they got this wrong?’
‘Not right away. Later maybe. Isaac said how the lieutenant is in Houston right now so I’ll probably just wait on the coroner.’
With a nod Pious returned his attention to Ike Bowen’s picture. ‘So whoever it was knocked on the door they had to have had a weapon. Old soldier like that, he would’ve been suspicious of anybody just showing up, so they had to be already holding.’
‘Yeah,’ Quarrie said. ‘What’s your point?’
Pious gestured. ‘Why bring the man down here? Why use his own piece and why make it look like he used it himself?’
‘Simple.’ Quarrie pointed to the chair. ‘If this is suicide then nobody’s looking for anybody else and the trail ends right where he was sat.’
Upstairs they found Isaac sitting out on the patio. Shaking a cigarette from his pack, Quarrie tapped it against the heel of his thumb then took a seat in a metal cane chair. He smiled encouragingly.
‘You OK?’ he said. ‘I guess this whole deal has you pretty hopped up.’
‘I’m OK,’ Isaac told him.
‘Listen,’ Quarrie went on. ‘That passageway, the storm shelter – there’s no way that’s how the intruder got in. It’s too intricate, too complicated. Whoever it was killed your daddy, I figure they just had him come to the door when they knocked.’
Isaac looked from him to Pious and back.
‘That’s how it happened,’ Quarrie assured him. ‘The gardener found the kitchen door open and I figure they left the same way they got in.’
Pious sat down and Quarrie laid his unlit cigarette on the table. ‘So anyway, I have to ask you some questions. Your father, did he have any enemies you can think of? Anybody he might’ve had a beef with?’
Isaac did not answer right away. Sitting with his hands in his lap he shifted his weight in the chair. ‘I don’t know, I guess it’s hard to say with me being away all the time. You kind of lose touch with what’s going on.’ Again he glanced from Quarrie to Pious. ‘I guess he might’ve had enemies. Plenty of people do and it’s a fact he could be pretty ornery.’
‘How long had he been up here?’ Quarrie said. ‘This house I mean, all on its own like this with no near neighbors. I guess that’s how he liked it, but how long had he lived here?’
‘Seven years almost. This was my base when I was in the army but I never really lived here myself.’
‘What about your brother?’
‘Ishmael?’ Isaac worked his shoulders. ‘He was here some of the time I guess, but then he was in and out of the hospital.’
Quarrie nodded. ‘Yeah, you mentioned that. What was he doing in the hospital?’
Isaac tapped his temple. ‘He had issues; it’s a fact my brother’s got problems.’
‘What sort of problems?’
‘Hard to say really. I guess when he was younger he used to talk to himself, hold conversations, you know, when nobody else was with him.’
Quarrie reached for his cigarette. ‘Where’d you live at back then?’
‘Oklahoma City.’
‘And your mom was already gone?’ Pious said.
Isaac nodded. ‘Long gone. She took off when we were kids.’
‘Why’d she do that, leave out on her family?’
Isaac sat forward. ‘Beats me,’ he said. ‘Why does anybody leave anybody? Why do people get divorced? It’s not like Dad had to give her anything. Money, I mean. I don’t think she walked with a dime. You’d have to ask her why she took off. I’d kind of like to find out myself.’
‘So do you have any idea where she is?’
Isaac shook his head. ‘She was never in contact, not with me or my brother, and my dad …’ He was struggling again. Shifting his gaze to the floor his voice seemed to fall away.
‘These hospitals,’ Quarrie said. ‘Your brother, you told us his troubles started when he was younger. How was it that kicked off?’
Eyes glassy, Isaac peered across the driveway towards the woodland that broke up the flatlands ahead of the lake. ‘I don’t know,’ he said. ‘I guess it started around the time Mom left. I asked Dad what it was set Ishmael off and he said he’d tell me when I was older.’ Lifting a hand he gestured. ‘I’m older now and I still don’t know so I guess he never did.’
Fifteen
Instead of going home, Quarrie had Pious fly him to a crop-dusting outfit just outside Winfield in Marion County. From the duster’s office he called Chief Billings and asked him to send someone out to pick him up. When he got into town Billings was on the phone and he waved Quarrie to the broken-down armchair.
‘That was the highway patrol,’ he said when he finished his call. ‘They just found that stolen Buick a block from a Baptist mission cottage in Marshall, Texas.’
Quarrie sat for a moment without saying anything
. He peered across the desk. ‘Why would he do that?’ he asked finally. ‘A town like Marshall. That ain’t anywhere to be at.’ He was quiet again, then he added, ‘He had to believe we wouldn’t know what he was driving, not with the way he drowned your cruiser. The fact we found it hasn’t been broadcast – the radio I’m talking about – has it?’
Billings shook his head. ‘No, it hasn’t.’
‘So why would he do that, Chief? Abandon the car he made such an effort getting hold of?’
The chief had no idea but he said he would find a vehicle for Quarrie to use then he opened a drawer and handed him two sets of phone records. One was for Mrs Perkins and the other Mary-Beth Gavin. Quarrie pored over them while Billings got back on the phone.
‘There are no long-distance calls here,’ Quarrie stated when the chief hung up. ‘Not from Mary-Beth’s phone anyway. In the six weeks she was here she didn’t make a long-distance phone call.’
Billings seemed to ponder that for a moment. ‘Six weeks isn’t very long,’ he said. ‘And maybe there was nobody to call. Or if there was, maybe she called from work or a payphone.’
Quarrie turned his attention to the Perkins bill. There were numbers for Dallas and Houston, as well as Santa Fe, New Mexico. He found one call to an area code he did not recognize and it had been made around the time that Mary-Beth would have been staying. Perched on the edge of Billings’s desk, he picked up the phone and dialled the number. He had to wait for the connection and it took a moment before he heard the dial tone.
Nobody answered and he was about to hang up and try again later when the line clicked and a woman’s voice sounded. ‘Hello?’ she said. ‘This is Carla.’
‘Afternoon, mam,’ Quarrie said, glancing at Billings where he walked around the desk and squatted on the arm of the chair. ‘I didn’t think anybody was picking up. I’m a police officer calling from Texas.’
