Blue Lonesome

by Bill Pronzini

  Another shrug and a spread of the hands, palms up.

  Messenger asked, “What about Joe Hanratty? I was told he and Roebuck had a fistfight a week before the killings.”

  “Hanratty is a violent man when he’s had too much whiskey. But he was at John T.’s ranch that day, working with Tom Spears.”

  “Spears and how many others vouched for that?”

  “Only Tom Spears.”

  Which wasn’t quite what Reverend Hoxie had told him. “And I’ll bet the two of them are friends.”

  “Yes. But the sheriff and the state police were satisfied that they told the truth.”

  “What was the fight about? A woman?”

  “Hanratty’s sister.”

  “One of Dave Roebuck’s conquests?”

  “Yes,” Orozco said, “but Hanratty knew about it weeks before the fight. Lynette made no secret of it.”

  “Lynette. There’s a Lynette who works as a waitress at the Goldtown Café.”

  “Lynette Carey. She is Hanratty’s sister.”

  “Did Hanratty provoke the fight with Roebuck?”

  “Those who were there say he did.”

  “What set him off?”

  “No one knows. He walked into the Hardrock Tavern, called Dave Roebuck a dirty son of a bitch, and punched him in the face.”

  “Hanratty wouldn’t tell why?”

  “No.”

  “Not even to the law?”

  “He said he was protecting his sister.”

  “From what, if the affair was common knowledge?”

  Orozco spread his hands again. “It was finished by then. Lynette had stopped seeing Dave Roebuck.”

  “Why?”

  “She wouldn’t say.”

  “Is it possible she killed him and Tess?”

  “No, it wasn’t Lynette. She has a child of her own, a year older. She would never harm a child.”

  “One of Roebuck’s other women then. Maria Hoxie?”

  “The daughter of a man of God? No.”

  “Maria did have an affair with Roebuck?”

  “So he claimed. It may have been a lie. The girl is a good Christian. Reverend Hoxie taught her to embrace God from the first day he brought her here.”

  “Brought her?”

  “She was an orphan. His wife couldn’t have children, a great sadness in his life. When she died he brought Maria from the Paiute school in Tonopah and raised her as his own.”

  Messenger watched Orozco shift position another time. Then he said, “You don’t think it was any woman, do you?”

  “No. Not a woman.”

  “Why? Because of what was done to Tess?”

  “One reason.”

  “But if Roebuck was shot by an angry lover and Tess was a witness …”

  “Women had cause to spit on him, but not to take his life. He promised them nothing—bragged about it. He would say, ‘I don’t have to make promises to a woman to fuck her. She knows from the start what she’s getting into, and so do I.’”

  “Still, it’s possible one of them decided she wanted more from him than just sex.”

  “He had no more to give,” Orozco said. “Not love, not friendship, not money—nothing.”

  “Why did Anna stay with him?”

  “She had nowhere else to go, she said.”

  “She and Tess could have moved in with the Burgesses.”

  “Dacy offered many times. Anna wouldn’t leave. She believed Dave Roebuck would change, settle down, learn to be a proper husband and father. Until his death she believed it.”

  Self-delusion. “She must’ve loved him in spite of it all.”

  “She did. Anna was—”

  He broke off because the trailer door opened again and Carmelita put her head out. The spicy-meat aroma was stronger now—strong enough to remind Messenger that he hadn’t eaten since breakfast. “Papa,” she said, “Henry will be home any minute. We’ll eat as soon as he comes.”

  “Yes, Carmelita.”

  “Bring Juanito with you when you come inside. And don’t forget to chain the dog.”

  “I won’t forget.” Orozco waited until she’d reshut the door before he pushed stiffly to his feet. He asked, “Will you have supper with us, Señor Messenger?”

  “Thanks, but I don’t think your daughter would like me as a guest at her table.”

  “There are many things my daughter doesn’t like. I’m fortunate she still likes me.” His mouth quirked wryly. “Until I forget once too often to chain my grandson and bring the dog with me when I come inside to supper.”

  Messenger realized then, only then, what he should have known two minutes into their conversation. Jaime Orozco was another member of the fraternity. Jaime Orozco was a very lonely man.

  10

  THE WILD HORSE Casino was like a squared pie cut into three more or less equal wedges. One wedge was a restaurant called the Wild Horse Grill (“Prime Nevada Beef—24 oz. T-Bones our Specialty”); the second was an open bar-lounge with a small stage and dance floor (“Now Featuring Beulah’s Own Jeri Lou Porter, the New Queen of Country”); and the third was the casino itself, all machine noise and blazing neon, populated by less than a dozen low rollers at this hour. Messenger threaded his way among the banks of modern electronic bandits: progressive slots, video 21 and Joker Is Wild poker games. These were getting the most play. The dozen or so traditional blackjack, roulette, and craps layouts sat neglected, three-quarters of them shrouded by dust covers.

  The cashier’s cage was at the rear. He asked one of the women inside for John T. Roebuck’s office; she directed him to a locked and barred door nearby. A security guard took his name, made him wait while he used a telephone, and then admitted him and conducted him up a flight of stairs and down a hallway to an open door at the far end.

  The office he walked into was an odd mix of functional and casual-comfortable. A pair of gunmetal-gray desks, each bearing a computer terminal, and a cluster of gunmetal-gray file cabinets shared the space with a massive leather-and-wood wet bar, a grouping of leather chairs, and a couch almost as large as a double bed. A man and a woman stood close together in front of the wet bar, each holding a drink. They didn’t move, waiting for him to come to them, taking his measure as he approached. John T. Roebuck and his wife, Lizbeth. Neither of them smiled as the introductions were made. This suited Messenger; he kept his expression as neutral as theirs.

  The Roebucks seemed as mismatched as the room. She was tall, almost statuesque, no older than thirty, with platinum blond hair and heavy breasts that strained the low-cut yellow dress she wore. Her eyes were a pale violet color, hard and shiny and shrewd; one up-close look into them and Messenger knew the dumb-blond appearance was pure facade. John T. was four inches shorter, fifteen years older—lean and dark, salt-and-pepper hair cropped short to minimize the fact that he was going bald. His black eyes were even shrewder than his wife’s, set deep under craggy brows. They didn’t blink much. His stance and his manner, like those of many small men, were aggressive. The take-charge, no-nonsense type. His handshake was iron hard. The some-thing-to-prove type, too.

  “Expected you some time before this, Jim,” he said. “Lizbeth and I were just about to go have supper.”

  “I didn’t get your message until after four. Then I had a few things to do.”

  “Sure you did. How is Jaime these days? Been a while since I’ve seen him.”

  “Well enough, for a man with a bad leg.”

  “You don’t seem surprised I know you been to see him at his daughter’s trailer.”

  “I’m not,” Messenger said. “From what I’ve heard, there’s not much happens in Beulah that you don’t know about.”

  “That’s right, Jim, there isn’t. Not much at all. Drink?”

  “Not for me, thanks.”

  “Single-malt scotch, sour-mash bourbon? Even got soda pop, if you prefer that.”

  “Nothing.”

  “Not a drinking man, Jim?” Lizbeth Roebuck asked. Sexy voice, h
usky and intimate. And just a little slurred.

  “Not much, no.”

  “That’s too bad. Liquor’s good for what ails you, and fine for celebrations. Tonight’s a whoop-up night for sure.”

  “Special occasion?”

  “Very special,” she said. “The long-awaited death of a murdering bitch.” She raised her glass. “Here’s to the soul of Anna Roebuck, may it rot in hell.”

  There was a silence.

  John T. said, “You don’t like that toast, eh, Jim?”

  “That’s right, I don’t.”

  “How come? That’s just what Anna was, you know. A murdering bitch.”

  “Seems to be the consensus.”

  “But you don’t think so.”

  “I have my doubts.”

  “Why is that? Anna tell you she didn’t do it? Cry on your shoulder?”

  “I didn’t know her that well. It’s just a feeling.”

  “A feeling,” John T. said. He took a tooled leather cigar case from his pocket, extracted a long, thin Mexican cheroot. He sniffed it appreciatively before he spoke again. “You drove all the way from San Francisco to Beulah, spent an entire day stirring folks up, because of a feeling?”

  “No, that isn’t why I came. I never intended to stir anybody up. I still don’t.”

  “I’m listening, Jim.”

  “I came to find out about her. And if she had any relatives, to notify them of her death.”

  Roebuck lit his cigar, blew aromatic smoke in Messenger’s direction without being deliberate about it. “Job for the police, isn’t it?”

  “The police weren’t able to trace her. She was using an assumed name.”

  “But you traced her. How was that, Jim?”

  “Luck,” Messenger said. “Just luck.”

  “What’d Dacy have to say when you talked to her?”

  “I think you know what she said.”

  “And that’s not good enough for you? Anna’s own sister believing she was guilty?”

  “It isn’t good enough for Jaime Orozco.”

  “Jaime’s a sentimental old fool. You know those three monkeys, Jim? See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil? Well, that’s Jaime in a beanpot.”

  It had been in Messenger’s mind, on the way to the casino, to tell John T. Roebuck about the fourteen thousand dollars impounded in San Francisco. If Dacy Burgess truly didn’t want it, then Anna’s dead husband’s brother was next in line. But now that he’d met Beulah’s big fish, he wouldn’t say a word to him about the money. He didn’t like John T. Nor Mrs. John T., either. Let Dacy tell them if she felt like it. Or Inspector Del Carlo, once he was notified.

  “Fact is, Jim,” Roebuck said, “the murders of my brother and his baby girl were the worst thing that ever happened in this town. Even in the old hell-roaring mining days, wasn’t anything as terrible. It hit us hard and it hurt us bad. You can understand that, can’t you?”

  “Of course.”

  “So it’s only natural we’re happy the woman who did it is dead and gone to hell where she belongs. All we want now is to put the whole ugly business behind us, try to forget it as best we can. But we can’t do that if a man who knows nothing much about the crimes, nothing at all about our people and our ways, goes around making wild claims about Anna’s innocence.”

  “Suppose she was innocent,” Messenger said.

  Lizbeth Roebuck said, “Oh shit, we know she wasn’t. We know it, you hear?” She finished her drink, went to the wet bar, and poured herself another.

  “That’s right,” John T. said. “Anna did it, no question. That’s why she killed herself. Innocent people don’t slice their wrists and bleed themselves to death.”

  “They do if they’re driven to it.”

  “Meaning by us, her friends and neighbors? We drove her out of town, drove her to suicide? Well, I hope we did. Better that than what might’ve happened if she’d stayed.”

  “What would’ve happened?” Messenger was angry now. The Roebucks’ cold and bitter self-righteousness was like an abrasive on his nerves. “You’d have taken the law into your own hands? Gone out to her ranch some dark night and lynched her?”

  “You been watching too many Western movies, Jim. We’re real civilized out here these days. Got indoor plumbing and everything. The last lynching in this county was more than ninety years ago.”

  “How about the last accidental shooting death? The last sudden unexplained disappearance?”

  John T. didn’t like that. He pointed his cheroot at Messenger and said thinly, “That’s just what I meant before. About stirring folks up, making wild claims.”

  “I’m not claiming anything. Except that I don’t believe Anna killed your brother and her daughter. I’m sorry if that bothers you, but I don’t see any reason to keep quiet about it.”

  “Man’s entitled to his opinion. Question is, what’re you planning to do about it?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe nothing.”

  “And maybe something. How long you fixing to stay in Beulah?”

  “I don’t know that either.”

  “I wouldn’t stay too long, if I was you. This is a tight little town and it can be pretty uncomfortable for an outsider hellbent on rubbing salt in healing wounds.”

  “Is that a threat, John T.?”

  “Threat? Lizbeth, you hear me make any kind of threat?”

  “No.” Ice rattled in her glass; her hand was no longer steady. “All you did was tell him not to keep pissing against the wind or it’s liable to blow right back in his face.”

  “Got a way with words, don’t she?” Roebuck said. “Tell you what, Jim. Have yourself a T-Bone and a couple of drinks in the Grill, on me. Then go on back to your motel, think things over, and maybe you’ll decide the best thing for everybody is to head out in the morning after all. Drive on down to Vegas. Hell of a lot more attractions down there, by a wide margin. It’s a friendlier place, too.”

  “I don’t doubt that.”

  “How about it, then?”

  “I’m not in the mood for steak tonight,” Messenger said, “and I doubt I’ll be in the mood for Vegas tomorrow. Beulah’s got all the attractions I’m interested in right now.”

  “Then you better learn how to duck. That’s my best advice, Jim: Learn how to duck real quick.”

  HE WONDERED, as he drove back to the High Desert Lodge, if he’d been foolish to provoke John T. Roebuck the way he had. If he might be getting himself in over his head. Small towns were bad places to make enemies, especially of the local honcho; he understood that from having grown up in one. And John T.’s thinly veiled threats hadn’t struck him as idle. Stick around, keep asking questions, and he was inviting more trouble than he was equipped to handle.

  Maybe he should pull up stakes tomorrow morning. What did he know about playing either detective or the standing-tall hero? One man pitted against an entire town—familiar theme in mysteries and Westerns both, and not a role for somebody like him. He was a CPA, for God’s sake. He led a quiet, nonviolent, disciplined existence. He was so far out of his element in Beulah, Nevada, that he could blunder around here for the next two weeks and even if he stayed out of harm’s way, find out little more than he knew right now.

  Still, he was reluctant to let go of the opportunity. He may be a passive individual, but that didn’t mean he ought to let himself be pushed around by men like John T. But it went beyond that. It even went beyond the question of Anna’s innocence or guilt, the challenge of systematically trying to prove an equation true or false. What he had developed was almost a compulsion, as if he were being manipulated into finishing what he’d started. Not by outside forces, but by forces within himself—the same forces that had led him to do what he’d done here so far.

  Male menopause, he thought. Jim Messenger’s own private hot flashes. But it wasn’t funny. In a way it was crucial. A kind of rebellion, perhaps, against the slow downward spiral into resignation and despair that had claimed Ms. Lonesome, and that one day, if he a
llowed it, might claim him as well.

  IN THE COLD hour before dawn, he awoke to the moaning melody of a rough desert wind blowing outside. Blowing riffs, high notes and low, like a hot-licks horn man improvising at an all-night jam. He had been dreaming about Doris, and he lay there thinking about her—both for the first time in years. Lay remembering another cold, windy night four months after their marriage: Candlestick Park, Giants versus Astros, early May.

  Doris loved baseball. She had a man’s feel for the game, an enthusiastic appreciation of strategy and statistics as well as for its subtleties, its fluidity and grace. When he’d voiced this perception to her she made a face and accused him of being sexist; but he hadn’t meant it that way at all. His own interest in baseball was not quite as keen as hers, particularly when it came to going to the ’Stick or the Oakland Coliseum for games; he was just as content to be a couch-potato TV spectator. But she craved the live atmosphere. Games were more exciting in person, she said. Besides, she loved hot dogs, peanuts, all the other ballpark trappings. They went to a lot of Giants and A’s games that first year—thirty or more.

  He hadn’t wanted to go that May night because of the weather. Doris nagged him into it. Pleasing her was important to him then; it had been important to him, for that matter, right up until the day she’d told him, “It just isn’t working, Jimmy. I think we’d better end it right now, before things get any worse between us.”

  The wind-chill factor at the ’Stick must have been close to zero—a raw wind so frigid it might have swept down from the Arctic wastes. Less than 2,500 other hardy souls were scattered through the stadium, most clustered in the lower deck behind home plate. Doris preferred to sit in the upper deck, the higher the better on the first base side; she thought you had a better perspective on the whole field from up there. As empty as the park was, they had an entire section to themselves: nobody above them, nobody within twenty rows below. Two castaways in the center of an island of empty seats, huddled and shivering beneath a heavy wool car blanket … he remembered that image crossing his mind at some point during the evening.

  It wasn’t much of a game. The Giants scored six runs in the bottom of the first and after that it settled into a dull pitchers’ duel. By the sixth inning he was bored and numb from the cold. The wind penetrated coats, sweaters, mittens, the blanket; not even body heat or hot coffee from the big thermos they’d brought kept the cold at bay. Twice he suggested leaving. But she was such a diehard fan she wouldn’t hear of it. “I don’t want to miss anything, Jimmy. You never know what might happen.”