Bitch Creek

by Tapply, William

  She looked down at the ledger, shaking her head. “Right,” she said. “It’s all your fault.”

  He shrugged. “It feels like it is. I don’t get why you don’t understand that.”

  “Look, Stoney,” she said. “I got to finish toting up these numbers. Then I’m going to lock up and go home. Doesn’t look like anyone else’ll be in tonight, so you can leave if you want.”

  “I thought you wanted to hear about what we learned today.”

  “Sure. Next time you drop in, if it’s not too busy, you can tell me all about it. Meanwhile, Lyle’s dead and nothing’s going to change that.”

  “I’ll be in tomorrow to open up.”

  “You do what you want to do, like always.”

  He let out a long breath. “Well, goddammit, Kate, that’s what I want to do. I’ll be here at seven.”

  “You be sure to let me know if you change your mind.”

  “I’m not going to change my mind.”

  Calhoun swept the floor and emptied the wastebaskets into the Dumpster out back. Then he straightened out the displays, moving items that customers had been looking at back to where they belonged, glancing through the boxes of flies to be sure that they were all in the right compartments.

  By the time he finished, Kate had hung the GONE FISHIN’ sign on the door and had moved to the back office, where she was talking on the phone. Calhoun stood in the doorway, and after a moment she glanced up, gave him a quick smile that her eyes did not participate in, then looked down at her desktop and resumed her conversation.

  He shrugged, walked out, and got into his truck, and all the way home he tried to figure out what had happened. He didn’t even pretend to understand women, never mind one as complicated as Kate Balaban. He knew their minds worked different, and that was about it. Men, he’d learned, tended to say what they were thinking and ask for what they wanted. Women expected you to know what they were thinking and wanting, and when you didn’t, they thought you didn’t love them.

  On the other hand, if Kate wasn’t so damn complicated, she wouldn’t be so interesting. And if she wasn’t so interesting, Calhoun figured he wouldn’t love her so much.

  She was all upset about Lyle. That was probably it.

  Sometimes, he knew, Kate was thinking about Walter, feeling guilty. She told him that Walter had never mentioned anything about it, not once since the night when they’d talked to him. But she said that sometimes she could feel Walter’s eyes on her, even when she was at Calhoun’s house and Walter was back in Portland. Calhoun tried to talk to her about it, but she told him to forget it, it was her situation and she’d handle it herself.

  He didn’t know if he could do what Kate was doing, living with somebody who loved her—and who, he knew, she loved, too—and being with somebody else who she also loved. Calhoun didn’t blame her for second-guessing herself, for growing distant sometimes, for taking it out on him.

  Maybe she’d come tonight. She’d feel bad about being snippy with him. She’d appear, maybe wearing the peasant blouse with the scooped neck and the full skirt that swirled around her legs when she walked and all that jangly silver and turquoise jewelry that made her look like a gypsy. She’d give him a big hug, whisper that she was sorry she’d been bitchy . . . and everything would be all right.

  He shook his head. It had taken him a long time to learn not to expect her, to understand that she came when she could and when she wanted to, and that she would never come to him unless she felt right about it. He supposed that most nights she didn’t feel right about it, and that was why she didn’t come more often.

  Yesterday he’d asked her to come, and she had. But that was an exception. Yesterday he’d found Lyle’s body.

  Maybe that was it. Maybe she was upset that she’d broken her own rule, or that he’d asked when they’d agreed that he never would.

  She would not come tonight. He was certain of that.

  Dusk was falling as he turned into his driveway. Well, Ralph would be glad to see him. Ralph was always glad to see him. No matter what he did or where he’d been, Ralph was the same.

  Dogs were a helluva lot more predictable than women.

  When he topped the last hill to his place, he saw the dark green Audi sedan parked where he always left his truck.

  The man in the suit had returned.

  CHAPTER

  SIXTEEN

  THAT WAS HOW CALHOUN THOUGHT OF HIM: The Man in the Suit. He appeared to be a few years older than Calhoun, and his sandy hair was turning gray. It looked washed-out, sort of colorless, like his eyes. Pretty much like the entire man. He was tall and skinny and stooped-over, with a long nose and a narrow face and a small mouth that barely moved when he talked. He’d never given Calhoun his name. He always wore a gray suit, and he showed up at unexpected times, more or less every couple of months.

  Calhoun got out of his truck and saw the Man in the Suit sitting in a rocker up on the deck. He was smoking a cigarette, absolutely relaxed, as if he had all the time in the world to sit there waiting for Calhoun to come home.

  Ralph was lying beside the man, and when he saw Calhoun he lifted his head and wagged his stubby little tail but did not bother getting up.

  Calhoun went in the front door, took the Remington autoloader off its hooks, and carried it out through the kitchen, through the sliding glass doors, and onto the deck.

  The Man in the Suit looked up and smiled. He opened his hand and showed Calhoun the three shotgun shells he was holding. “Come on, Stoney,” he said. “Have a seat. Catch me up.”

  Calhoun had been putting up drywall in the living room on a rainy afternoon in July of his first summer in Maine. It had been four months since he’d left the hospital, and he’d almost stopped thinking about it. Lyle had left after lunch to go bass fishing, and Calhoun was thinking that if Lyle brought back a good report, maybe tomorrow he’d take a break from his house building and try it himself, when he’d heard a voice call, “Mr. Calhoun?”

  The front door was open and a man was standing on the porch with rainwater dripping off the roof onto his trench coat. A green Audi sedan was parked out front beside Calhoun’s truck. Under his open coat the man wore a gray suit and striped necktie. Calhoun didn’t remember ever seeing him before.

  “Come on in,” he said. “It’s raining out there.” He figured the man was an insurance salesman. The folks who handed out religious pamphlets generally traveled in pairs.

  The stranger stepped inside and stood there. “I was just passing by, thought I’d drop in and see how you were doing.”

  He was not from Maine. He had one of those vague, homogenized accents. Someone who moved around a lot, who had a talent for blending in, a man who people would have trouble remembering.

  “I don’t believe I know you, sir,” Calhoun said.

  The man had stepped into what would eventually be the kitchen, but which then had a bare plywood floor. “You never used to talk like that,” he said, shaking the water out of his hair.

  “Like what?”

  “That accent.”

  Calhoun had shrugged. “It’s how I talk. So what do you want?”

  “Well, to tell you the truth, they asked me to look in on you, make sure everything was going okay.”

  “They?”

  He flapped his hands and smiled.

  “From the hospital, you mean?”

  “Right,” he said, and Calhoun knew by the way he said it that it wasn’t exactly the truth.

  “Tell them I’m fine,” said Calhoun. “Thank them very much for their concern. Tell them they don’t need to check up on me. I don’t want to be checked up on. In fact, tell them that in the future I intend to shoot trespassers. okay? Will you tell them that?”

  He gave Calhoun a patient smile, the sort of smile a priest might give a sinner. “They care about you, Mr. Calhoun. That’s all.”

  “And they want to know what I’m remembering.”

  “Well, yes. That. And just, in general, if—”
/>   “Nothing. Tell them I remember nothing. I’m starting over. Okay?”

  The Man in the Suit had stood there with his eyebrows arched, as if he’d expected Calhoun to elaborate. After a minute, he shrugged. “Okay, Mr. Calhoun.” He turned to leave, hesitated, then said, “They will keep checking on you, you know.”

  “From now on,” Calhoun had said, “I’ll be shooting trespassers. Be sure you tell ’em that.”

  The next time the Man in the Suit appeared at the door, Calhoun had greeted him with the Remington on his shoulder.

  “You’re not going to shoot me, Stoney,” the man said, and when Calhoun looked down, he saw that the man was holding a little automatic pistol in his hand and was pointing it in the direction of Calhoun’s balls.

  “I just want you to go away and not come back.”

  “Can’t do that,” the man said. “I’d lose my job, and they’d just send somebody else.”

  “Am I that important?” said Calhoun.

  The Man in the Suit smiled. “Got a beer or something?”

  “No,” said Calhoun. “You want a Coke?”

  “Oh, right,” said the Man in the Suit. “No alcohol.”

  Calhoun hung the Remington back on the wall, took a couple of Cokes from the refrigerator, and he and the man sat in the rockers on the deck.

  “You’ve done a nice job here,” the man said, tucking his automatic into a holster under his left armpit.

  “Why don’t you loosen your tie,” said Calhoun. “Relax, listen to the birds sing.”

  “I don’t like this any more than you do,” the man said. “If it was me, I’d just leave you alone. But that’s not going to happen.”

  “They’re afraid I’ll remember something,” said Calhoun.

  The Man in the Suit shrugged.

  “I don’t,” said Calhoun. “I don’t remember anything.”

  “Good,” said the man. “Best all around.”

  “What if I do remember something?”

  “Best if you don’t tell anybody.”

  “You don’t want me to tell you?”

  “Don’t tell anybody, Stoney. Especially me.”

  “How do I know what it is they don’t want me to remember?”

  “You’ll know.” The man shifted in the rocker so that he was peering into Calhoun’s face. “But you’ve got to give me something now and then. That way, I drop in occasionally, you update me, and I leave. If you don’t, if you get hard-assed with me . . .” He waved his hand in the air and slumped back into the rocker.

  “I told you I was going to shoot trespassers,” said Calhoun.

  “Good,” the Man in the Suit had said. “Paranoia is good. Okay. What else’ve you got for me?”

  Calhoun went out onto the deck. The Man in the Suit was sipping a Coke that he’d helped himself to from the refrigerator. He put the shotgun shells on the table and arched his eyebrows. “Well?”

  “I was some kind of cop, wasn’t I?” said Calhoun. He noticed the bulge of the shoulder harness under the man’s jacket.

  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  They’d done this dance before, but Calhoun wanted to reaffirm it. “But you are at liberty to say if I’m wrong.”

  The Man in the Suit smiled. “Sure.”

  “You aren’t saying I’m wrong.”

  “No, I’m not saying that.”

  “But if I was wrong, you’d say so.”

  “Yes. We’ve already established that. Now tell me. What makes you think you were some kind of cop?”

  “Nothing specific,” Calhoun said carefully. “We’ve got a murder up here, and it just feels ... I don’t know. Familiar.”

  “Familiar? How so?”

  Calhoun remembered a dark classroom, pictures of faces flashing on a screen, a feeling of intense concentration, of being tested and challenged, of wanting something very badly. There were other images . . .

  Better not to share too much of this with the Man in the Suit.

  He shrugged. “Just that old déjà vu shit. Like I might’ve investigated murders before. Nothing I could pin down.”

  “What have you remembered since last time?”

  Calhoun shook his head. “Those quick memory flashes. They come and go before I can store them away. They don’t stick.”

  “You’ve got to give me something, Stoney.”

  “What’ve you got for me?”

  “You’ve got to be patient.”

  Calhoun said, “I’m finding that I don’t forget a damn thing since . . . since the hospital. Everything’s like a movie in my head, and I can rewind it and replay it, slow it down and stop it and study every frame. We’ve had this murder—”

  “I know about the murder,” said the Man in the Suit.

  “What do you know?”

  “You found Lyle McMahan’s body. They’re looking for a man named Fred Green.” He shrugged.

  Calhoun reached over and gripped the man’s wrist. “What else do you know?”

  “Nothing, Stoney. Really. It’s got nothing to do with us.”

  Calhoun stared at him for a minute, then slumped back in his chair. “I still get those—those ghosts,” he said. “The day before I found Lyle, I saw a naked body drifting down my creek.” He shook his head. “I think it was Lyle.”

  “A ghost, huh?”

  “Yes. An apparition. When I found Lyle, I thought I was seeing another one.”

  “You believe Fred Green killed him?”

  “What do you know about Fred Green?” said Calhoun. “Goddammit, if—”

  “It’s unrelated,” said the Man in the Suit. “We don’t know any more about Fred Green than you do. I know about the murder because it’s my job to know about you.”

  “I came up here because I didn’t like you people snooping around inside my head.”

  “I know that, Stoney,” he said. “We’ve been through all that. We’ve got an understanding, you and I.” He lifted his Coke and took a sip. “And I’m sorry about Lyle.”

  Calhoun nodded. “Only other thing I can tell you is that I’ve found I’ve got a talent for sketching. I drew a picture of Fred Green for Sheriff Dickman, and damned if it didn’t come out looking exactly like the man. I guess I was taught how to do that, huh?”

  The Man in the Suit smiled. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  “Tell them that I don’t remember anything about the man who saved my life or what I was doing with him or where we were. Nothing. Tell them they’ve got nothing to worry about.”

  “Good.”

  “I want to know about my parents,” said Calhoun.

  “I understand. Maybe another time.”

  They sat there on the deck, both of them staring off into the woods, and the silence between them was not uncomfortable. After a couple of minutes, Calhoun said, “You’re from the government, not the hospital.” He continued to gaze into the distance. “Right?”

  The Man in the Suit did not turn his head. “I’m not at liberty to say.”

  After the Man in the Suit left, Calhoun went inside. He reloaded the Remington—two shells in the magazine and one in the chamber—and made sure the safety was on. He fed Ralph and heated a can of spaghetti for himself.

  Then he put on some music and sat with his anthology. He began reading Faulkner’s “The Bear,” a helluva good story, and one he knew he’d read before.

  But his mind kept wandering. What if Fred Green had come up here from Calhoun’s previous life, the one he couldn’t remember? What if Lyle was dead because of something Calhoun had done before the hospital?

  The Man in the Suit had denied it. But Calhoun knew he lied. They lied to each other. That was part of their understanding. They mingled lies in with some truth and left it up to each other to figure out which was which.

  If it turned out that Fred Green had any connection whatsoever to his unremembered life, Calhoun swore to himself that he would shoot two people dead. First, Mr. Fred Green. Second, the Man in the Suit.

  Aro
und midnight he went outside to keep Ralph company while the dog sniffed around for good places to lift his leg, and as he was standing there enjoying the aroma of the piney woods and listening to the creek and watching clouds skid across the face of the moon, he suddenly saw Kate with her telephone wedged against her neck. She was gazing up at the ceiling. There was a smile on her pretty face, and he knew that everything was okay with her again.

  He smiled, called Ralph, and went inside. He picked up the telephone, hesitated, and put it back on its cradle. No sense spoiling a good thing.

  CHAPTER

  SEVENTEEN

  CALHOUN BROUGHT RALPH TO THE SHOP WITH HIM the next morning, as he often did. Kate liked having Ralph there. She said it gave the place a kind of homey atmosphere that put customers at ease and encouraged them to spend money. Besides, Kate liked Ralph.

  It was a Saturday in June, the busiest day of the week in the best month of the year for all kinds of fishing in Maine, so he got there a little before six. He turned the sign around so that it read OPEN and filled a bowl of water for Ralph. He threw one of his old sweaters in the corner and told him to lie down and take it easy. The customers liked seeing Ralph lying there, looking bored, and Ralph liked watching the customers out of his half-lidded eyes. Calhoun thought every fishing shop should have a bored bird dog lying in the corner on a ratty old sweater.

  He found the NPR station on the radio and sat at the fly-tying desk to make some more sand eel flies. Stripers crashed sand eels along the beaches at night in June, and the shop’s supply of fly-rod imitations was running low. He’d been experimenting with a design that used flexible nylon tubing and synthetic hair and Krystal Flash.

  Customers began wandering in almost immediately, and between selling flies and giving away the locations of hotspots and other hard-earned lore, he had barely managed to turn out a dozen flies in the couple of hours before Kate got there.

  She came to the desk and picked up one of Calhoun’s sand eels. “Looks pretty good,” she said. “How’s it behave in the water?”

  “Lyle tried some last week,” said Calhoun. “Did real good with ’em, he said.”