Lost Echoes

by Joe R. Lansdale

So he was getting better. Not where he’d like to be, but better.

  Of course, he had put the egg cartons back up, the cardboard. There wasn’t any use being silly.

  One day at work, shelving books, lost in his own world, not thinking about Talia or school or the sounds, or anything like that, a female voice said, “Hey.”

  It was Kayla. She wasn’t in her cop duds. Had on a loose T-shirt, blue jeans, tennis shoes, an oversize coat, her hair tied back, little to no makeup. She was smiling. He loved the way she smiled. She had a wide, expressive mouth, and seeing her smile made him do the same.

  “I was softer this time,” she said. “So you wouldn’t bump your head.”

  “No. I’m good.”

  “Ever get a break?”

  Harry looked at his watch. “I get off in five minutes. Just work mornings, two to three hours.”

  “Could you take a girl to coffee?”

  “I could. I would. I want to.”

  “Remember how Joey was always taking a beating?” Kayla said.

  “Never really had much of a chance, did he?”

  “Guess not.”

  “Why I’ve sort of stayed friends with him, I guess. We’re not exactly talking right now, but I know we will. I always go back. He’s just such a part of me.”

  They were in Kayla’s car, and as they pulled into her drive a large deer sprang into the yard and leaped onto the car.

  No. Not a deer. A big-ass dog.

  “Good grief,” Harry said.

  “That’s Winston,” Kayla said. “He’s part Great Dane or something.”

  They sat inside the car and studied Winston. He had his paws on the front of the hood, his tongue hanging out of his mouth, saliva dripping all over the place.

  “He’s actually a baby,” Kayla said. “He has nuts the size of baseballs, but he’s a baby. Belongs to my next-door neighbor. Winston likes to walk on cars.”

  “No joke?”

  “Also likes to put his nose about six inches up my ass every time I go to the door.”

  Harry thought, Well, he’s got that in common with a lot of males. He said, “That’s not good.”

  “Depends on what kind of mood I’m in,” Kayla said, and looked across at him and smiled.

  “Can we get out?” Harry asked.

  “We can. But it’s best to let him sort of finish with the car.”

  After a moment Winston struggled up to where he could stand on the hood, looked directly into the windshield, making dog nose smears on the glass. From that angle, Harry confirmed that Winston did in fact have nuts the size of baseballs.

  “This can’t be good for your car,” Harry said.

  “Thankfully, it’s a piece of junk. I love driving the squad car. That baby will run. This one limps.”

  “I have a similar ride,” Harry said. “The limping one, I mean.”

  Winston sprang off the hood of the car and dashed across the yard, stuck his nose under an overgrown shrub, and started noodling the dirt aside with his snout. A moment later he was snapping his jaws together with a kind of ecstasy that, if he weren’t a dog, might indicate drug use.

  “Cat shit,” Kayla said. “He digs it out from under the shrubs. Standing on cars, nosing asses, eating cat shit. That’s his life. Simple, but somehow poetic. Don’t you think?”

  When they got to Kayla’s door, Winston ran over and gave them a sniff. “Go on, Winston,” Kayla said.

  The dog looked as if he had been insulted, then bolted back across the yard.

  “I’m always afraid his big dumb ass is going to get run over,” Kayla said, working her key in the lock. “As a cop, I could make a stink of it, but I’m afraid Winston will end up at the shelter, get the needle. Around here most of the neighbors kind of put up with him.”

  Inside, the place smelled faintly of incense and Kayla’s intense perfume. “Thought we’d just have coffee here,” she said. “Besides, there’s something I want to show you.”

  “So much time had gone by,” Harry said, “I thought you had forgotten me.”

  “Hey. You had my number.”

  “I mean after you moved.”

  “Oh. Well, I meant now. I was waiting for you to call. And when you didn’t, I was a little pissed. But I cut you some slack. You breaking up with your girl and all.”

  “I don’t know she was ever really my girl.”

  “Oh,” Kayla said. “That’s just terrible.”

  In the kitchen there were a couple of bar stools at the counter. Harry sat on one while Talia made coffee. While it perked, they talked about this and that, old times mostly. When the java was ready Kayla poured them cups and they moved into the living room.

  “Think you and Talia might get back together?” Kayla asked.

  “Only if our cars collide.”

  “You’ll drive safely, won’t you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I’ve thought about you over the years.”

  “My handsome face, I suppose?”

  “You look all right. I’ve thought about you. I always thought you were…sweet.”

  “That’s what every red-blooded American boy likes to hear, how they’re sweet. Sometimes we like to be thought of as a little dangerous. Sometimes, when I’m at work, I stack some of the books a little crooked. Who knows if they might fall?”

  Kayla sipped her coffee, watched him over the cup.

  “No joke?” she said.

  Harry crossed himself. “Gospel.”

  “I don’t want you to think I only brought you here because I need help.”

  “Help?”

  “Yeah. Harry. I believe your visions. The sounds. I do. I did when we were kids…Well, for the most part. I’ve been thinking about it for a few days, and what you said about the redheaded guy—”

  “You want help?” Harry had a sudden sinking feeling. Maybe women saw him as some kind of temporary utensil, like a plastic fork. Use it and toss it. The coffee turned sour in his stomach.

  “Yeah. I mean, I want to see you. But you talking about the sounds, your visions, that’s what got me really excited. Let me tell you something. Back when my dad died, the papers said it was suicide. It wasn’t. Even the police knew that. They were giving it what they thought was a good spin.”

  “How do you spin suicide as good?”

  “I found him, Harry. He left the force, had his own garage, like he always wanted. I had come to visit him for a few days. When he didn’t come home at dark, I went down to the garage. It was walking distance from the house. Went down there and found him. He was dead all right. He was hanging from a door and had a lamp cord around his neck and he was…Shit, this is hard. Not many people know this.”

  “You don’t have to say any more.”

  “I want to. I think you can help me.”

  “I don’t know, Kayla…I mean, if you’re going with this where I think you’re going—”

  “He was hanging from the office door and he was wearing a bra, fishnet stockings, and pink panties.”

  “Pink panties?”

  “With lace.”

  “Ouch.”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  “Last time we were together,” Harry said, “I asked you about your father. You said, ‘Pink’.”

  “I did?”

  “Yeah.”

  “It was on my mind. Those goddamn pink underpants.”

  “Go on.”

  “So I called the cops, and they came out, said he died of autoerotic strangulation. You know what that is?”

  “I think so.”

  “Said he was, well, masturbating, and that the choking heightened the sensation. That he went too far. Cord got too tight and he died. Happens all the time. You can even buy special rigs for the operation. Devices hang you for a certain length of time, then the rigs let go. Daddy didn’t have a rig. Had a lamp cord tied around his neck, stretched over the door, and tied to the doorknob on the other side.

  “Cops took pictures, made an investigation, decided he accid
ently killed himself. Being as he had been one of their own, they called it suicide so as not to embarrass me or my mother. But the crime photos, the case—it went into the files. Way deep in the files.”

  “You don’t believe he died of autoerotic asphyxiation?”

  “No. I know kids don’t know everything about their parents, but I don’t believe that. That wasn’t anything like my father. He didn’t even like to hold my mother’s purse when she was in the store—you know, macho thing. So him dressed up like that, I don’t think so. And there are other things.

  “One: The bra didn’t fit. He was going to do that, cared about it, don’t you think it would fit?”

  “Gee, Kayla, I don’t know. That’s kind of out of my league.”

  “Two: His feet were a foot off the ground. If it was autoerotic, and he didn’t intend to die, don’t you think he would have worked that out better? So he could get loose of the situation when he wanted?

  “Three—and I don’t even like to talk about this, but—his penis was in the panties. He didn’t have it out. He wasn’t, you know…stroking it.”

  “Maybe he hadn’t had time…. Just being devil’s advocate. You know, things could have gone wrong, and it was all over before he got to that part.”

  “Maybe. But there are other things. Four: the wire around his neck. It was cut off a lamp from the office. He was gonna do it, don’t you think he’d have had rope, or another wire? I don’t believe he suddenly thought, Damn, I got to have me some of that pleasure, so I’ll just take this long lamp wire and cut it and use it. That doesn’t seem right. And five: The door to the garage wasn’t locked. The lights were out, but the door wasn’t locked. Back door was open too. I know. I ran out of that one. I ran all the way to the house to call before I realized there was a phone in the garage. He was going to do something like that, don’t you think he would have locked the door?

  “Six—and this one I didn’t know until I looked at the photographs—he was all bruised up around the eyes, the jaw. You can see the bruises in the pictures. Look.”

  Kayla went to her desk, took a key from under the chair cushion, unlocked a drawer, and pulled out the files. She took them over to where Harry sat, opened them, gave Harry a look.

  Mr. Jones certainly didn’t look as if he was the kind of guy to deck himself out in bra, panties, and fishnets. He was a big, burly guy. But hell, it took all kinds.

  “Seven: Look at his wrists. Look at the marks. Looks like they were tied so he couldn’t get himself loose. When it was over someone cut the bonds, left him hanging to make it look like an accident.”

  “Why exactly are you telling me all this, Kayla? I appreciate your confidence, but…no offense, I don’t hear from you in years, and all of a sudden you’re telling me about your dad in panties and fishnets, and you’re showing me very private photographs.”

  “Do you see the bruises? They show up good here.”

  She handed him a photo.

  “Could be bruises, I guess.”

  “Look at the next one, Harry. It’s a close-up of his face.”

  Harry didn’t like the photographs. The close-up especially, way Mr. Jones’s tongue was poking out of his mouth, his teeth clenched into it. But he did see the bruises.

  “I see them,” he said. “But I still don’t understand what this has to do with me.”

  Actually, he had an idea, but didn’t want to suggest it.

  “Eight: the redhead, Harry. One you saw in the shelter? Way you described him. It fit with something. I think that was the guy who worked for my father. Young guy learning the mechanic trade. I didn’t know him well. I met him during my visit with Dad. But the other night you described him to a T. His name was Vincent Something-or-another. I’d have to look at the files to see. I have more in the drawer there. I’m not supposed to have them. I slipped in and copied them. They’re not part of my bailiwick as a new cop, but I copied them anyway. Vincent was there that night, earlier, because I saw him when I came down to see Dad the first time, but he wasn’t there when I found Dad.”

  “You think the redhead did it?”

  “He was never found. Just disappeared. Never went home.”

  “So it looks like it was him.”

  “Don’t think so. You know what I think? I think someone did that to my dad to make it look like an accident and not murder. As for Vincent doing it, he couldn’t have rolled my father over if he was dead. He was too small, and he adored my father. You could tell. Dad was, I don’t know, a kind of uncle to the kid, or father figure. This is stuff I’ve figured out after the fact, based on the way I remember things.”

  “Sometimes we don’t remember as well as we think. Or we remember the way we want to.”

  Kayla tapped the photo with the tip of her finger.

  “What I believe happened is someone—probably more than one, because I think those bruises show my father put up a fight, did this to him. And to keep the murder from being investigated, maybe to embarrass him in death, they dressed him out in women’s clothes.”

  “Why would they want to embarrass him?” Harry asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “What about the redhead? He didn’t do it, what’s his connection? Where is he?”

  “I think he was there that night when it happened,” Kayla said. “I don’t know where, but I think they may not have known it right away. When they found out he was there, their plan was snapped. They had to get rid of him. They killed him because he was a witness. Couldn’t let him be found dead in the garage, that would mess up their plot, so they took him somewhere where he could never be found and killed him.”

  “The shelter?”

  “I think so. The golf course McGuire owns, it’s right behind his house. There’s a thin line of woods between the course and his property. The garage is on the far side of the golf course. What I’m saying is the garage, the course, and my dad were not that far apart. I’ll throw something else in: Joey’s dad doesn’t live far from there, and that’s one of the reasons my mom and dad split up.”

  “Joey’s dad?”

  “Joey’s mom. Dad, he was seeing her. He was more than seeing her. Mom found out about it, and…well, it started coming apart. Can you imagine that? Joey’s mom.”

  “It surprises me. You believe it?”

  “Yeah. He admitted it to Mom when she found out. Why they split up. Why he lived here and we lived in Tyler when I was growing up. Me and him, we got okay again, though. That’s why I was down to see him when he died. Trying to do the quality-time thing. But all this, and Joey’s dad being nearby, and him maybe finding out, probably knowing all about it, and him being the way he was…he could have been in on it. It all links up like boxcars.”

  “But where’s the body? Why would they take him there? Why the shelter?”

  “According to you, whoever did the murder knew that shelter. Right?”

  “Seemed that way. Still, what about the body? Where is it?”

  “Haven’t figured that part. There are a number of things I haven’t figured. You see, Harry, the house my dad lived in, it’s sold, but the garage is still there, locked up. It belongs to me. It was in some kind of will or trust or something. It’s mine. I’ve been there several times, and—”

  “You want me to go there?” he said.

  Kayla nodded. “You have a unique ability.”

  “God, Kayla…It’s not easy. It’s not like watching a movie. I get…sensations, feelings. I’ve just now gotten to where the little stored-up things, accidents and fights and arguments that I hear from some bang or clang trapped in a car, a stone, or whatever…It’s just now that that stuff doesn’t drive me crazy. I’ve been working hard on that. I don’t want to dive right back into it.”

  “It’s a lot to ask—”

  “More than a lot.”

  “—and I don’t want you to think it’s the only reason I’m glad to see you, but…it’s important, Harry. Don’t you think? Solving a murder? My father’s murder?”
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  “Jesus, Kayla. You don’t know what you’re asking.”

  “I know what I’m asking. I’m asking for you to help me know what happened. He was murdered. I’m sure of it.”

  Harry sat and thought for a long time. When he looked up, Kayla was watching him intently.

  “I don’t think so,” he said.

  She looked as if she had just been pushed off a cliff. She nodded. “All right…I’ll give you a ride home.”

  45

  Lying on his couch in his undershorts, Harry listened to the afternoon wind wrap itself around the apartment. He wondered why wind didn’t carry all manner of messages. Seemed as if all the horrors and terrors and bad things of the world would be on the wind. Was it just too flexible to hold it all?

  He wondered why the big, bad sounds hid in rocks and wood and plastic and stone. He wondered why people his age liked rap music. He wondered why cats were popular pets. He wondered why in the middle of the day, even when he felt tired, like now, he couldn’t go to sleep. He wondered if Jimmy was beating someone up right now, or if McGuire might be in on some kind of kill. He thought about all manner of shit to keep from wondering about Kayla.

  She didn’t know what she was asking. Not really.

  If she did, she wouldn’t ask.

  Or maybe she would.

  If it were his dad died that way, would he put himself through this business? Would he?

  Course he would.

  Harry sat up in bed and looked around his room. His prison cell.

  Shit. I’m gonna be sick and scared and miserable and keep telling myself how goddamn good I’m doing, I might as well turn it all into something positive.

  He got up and found his pants and pulled his wallet out and got Kayla’s number out of it. He called. She answered right away.

  “One condition.”

  “Name it.”

  “I might ask for your body.”

  “I might give it to you.”

  “What I want is to bring a friend along. Someone I trust and who can sort of help you watch after me, because I may need it.”

  “That’s not saying much for my body.”

  “Your body is just fine, and, frankly, I wouldn’t mind having designs on it. But not for a favor.”