The Exiled

by Christopher Charles

  “Power?” Sophia said. “Listen to you.”

  “Your father will be proud.”

  “Don’t worry so much about my father.”

  Raney nodded to the portrait Sophia kept on her dresser of retired captain Ed Ferguson decked out in formal blues.

  “People still talk about him,” Raney said.

  “I know. No one liked him, but everyone respected him.”

  “The Bruno case made him a legend.”

  “Is that what you’re after? A legacy?”

  “I just want to make cases,” Raney said.

  “Liar. You’re exactly like my father.”

  “You knew I was a cop when we met.”

  “I like my clichés big and glaring.”

  “We should work that into our vows.”

  “Done,” she said.

  She switched off the light, set her arm slowly across his chest. Raney lay there, eyes open, listening to her breathe.

  5

  The sign on the glass door read CLOSED, but there was a woman unpacking merchandise at the far end of a slim aisle. Raney searched for a bell, then rapped on the glass with his knuckles. The woman ignored him. He rapped harder, stood back and waited. The sun was setting over the western range, casting all of Main Street in a violet shadow. Raney wished he had his camera.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, “but we close at six.”

  Raney held up his badge. She was older than he’d imagined, past thirty, with red hair that flowed to her hips and a single cluster of freckles at the bridge of her nose. She appeared fit in a way that suggested running or mountain biking, wore a bevy of rings—turquoise, silver, lapis lazuli—but none that linked her to anyone else. Pretty, stylish, unbetrothed: the combination made her exotic in this part of the world.

  “Can I help you?” she asked.

  “You haven’t heard?” Raney said.

  “Heard what?”

  “Do you mind if I come in?”

  “I’m in the middle of inventory.”

  “It’s important.”

  The store, unlike Mavis’s home, appeared crowded and chaotic, but the chaos was organized: a deliberate color scheme drew the customer’s eye clockwise around the room, from the faded umber of a landscape painting to the burning sienna of a Navajo headdress. In between were metal shelving units running front to back, crammed with colored pencils, tubes of oil paint, sketch pads, stretched and unstretched canvases, barrels of yarn. To the right of the entrance was a small coffee bar and a varnished wooden bench.

  “There’s been an incident, Ms.…”

  “Remler,” she said. “But call me Clara.”

  “Clara. How long have you worked for Mrs. Wilkins?”

  “Almost three years.”

  “I hear you consider her a friend as well as an employer.”

  “That’s right. What’s this about? What incident?”

  “I’m sorry to have to tell you that Jack Wilkins is dead.”

  “Dead? How?”

  “Ms.…Clara, I investigate murders.”

  She stepped back, dropped onto the bench, then leaped straight up.

  “What am I doing?” she said. “I need to see Mavis.”

  Raney took her arm, tugged her gently back down.

  “You’d better wait. Forensics won’t have finished yet.”

  “Tell me what happened,” she said.

  “I will. But first I need to ask a few questions.”

  “Was it a break-in?”

  “That’s part of it. Let me—”

  “Just tell me that Mavis is okay. Tell me she’s okay, and I’ll answer all the questions you want.”

  “She’s fine.”

  “Thank God. I never liked her living out there, alone with that man. Jesus, what am I saying? He’s dead.”

  Unlike her employer, Clara seemed genuinely flustered—not hysterical, but lost, as though waiting for a single emotion to settle in.

  “It’s all right,” Raney said. “Take a moment. Can I get you something? Water? Tea?”

  “I’d love an ice water,” she said. “That’s very kind of you.”

  Raney stepped behind the bar. Clara watched him scoop ice into a glass.

  “I thought you were supposed to shake me to my senses,” she said.

  “I don’t have a partner to play good cop.”

  “So you’re playing?”

  “No,” he said. “I’m not playing.”

  She sat cradling her glass, drawing deep breaths, taking an occasional swallow.

  “All right,” she said. “I’m ready now.”

  Raney told himself to go slow.

  “It seems you weren’t fond of Jack.”

  “I’m sorry, this sounds awful, but there was nothing to be fond of. I’m sure there was once, but not now. I never saw the man without a beer in his hand. He’d have these fits of rage. He’d criticize Mavis. Her cooking. The way she dressed. He’d ridicule her painting. In front of me or anybody else. Then he’d apologize in this cloying, sniveling way that would go on and on. It was horrible to watch.”

  An angle Raney should have anticipated: Jack dipping into his own supply, disguising his habit with alcohol.

  “Did he ever hit her?”

  “Not that I know of.”

  “Why do you think she stayed with him?”

  “Like I said, there must have been another Jack, one she hoped he’d turn back into.”

  Raney remembered the divide in the Wilkinses’ home. He remembered Bay’s long glance.

  “And in the meantime?” he asked.

  “The meantime?”

  “Mrs. Wilkins is an attractive woman. I hear she has companions.”

  Clara blanched.

  “There’s just the one that I know of,” she said. “And that ended a year ago.”

  “Tell me about him.”

  “He wasn’t much better than Jack. He used to be an airline pilot, then he made a small fortune in real estate. But he gambles. He started asking Mavis for loans. Small loans at first, but the amount kept growing.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Bob. Bob Sims.”

  “Do you know where he lives?”

  “No, but I know where you can find him. Up on the hill. At the casino.”

  “Describe him.”

  “Average height. Midsixties. No one would call him slender. Wears a jet-black toupee that’s too small for his head. And he dresses the way Europeans think Americans dress—button-down Hawaiian shirts, the louder the better. And cowboy boots with a snakeskin design.”

  “You’d make a good cop,” Raney said.

  “I doubt it.”

  “You’re sure there’s been nobody else?”

  “She was talking with a guy online. A schoolteacher up in Albuquerque. I don’t think they ever met face-to-face.”

  “Thank you. You’ve been a big help.”

  “I’m glad,” she said. “Now tell me.”

  He told her. The bunker. The bodies. The missing coke. He left out the padlock, the fact that they’d been caged down there, maybe for weeks.

  Clara stood, slammed her glass on the counter.

  “Jesus fucking Christ,” she said. “The danger he must have put her in.”

  Did Raney catch a hint of acting? He pushed the thought away, then wondered why he was pushing it away.

  “One more question: Did Mavis ever say anything about Jack’s side business?”

  “No,” she said. “I had no idea. And I’m sure Mavis didn’t, either.”

  Raney left his card on the coffee bar.

  “If you think of anything else,” he said.

  He turned to let himself out, found an older woman poised to ring the bell. A skinny, redheaded boy—five, maybe six—gripped her free hand. Raney looked back at Clara.

  “My son,” she said. “And Mrs. Hardin, his tutor.”

  Raney unlocked the door, held it open.

  “Obliged,” Mrs. Hardin said.

  As they mo
ved past, the boy reached out, ran an index finger across Raney’s badge.

  “A lawman,” Mrs. Hardin said. “What do you think about that, Daniel?”

  Daniel answered with a series of swift and fluid gestures, second nature to him, mesmeric to Raney—as though the boy were performing a flash ballet with his hands.

  “He wants to know why you wear the badge on your belt and not your chest.”

  Raney pulled it off, thumbed the clip.

  “So dum-dums like me don’t stab ourselves,” he said.

  Daniel signed again.

  “He’s asking if it’s real.”

  “Of course it’s real,” Clara said. “How about a hug for your mother?”

  She crouched, arms spread. Daniel ran, leaped, knocked her off balance.

  “Show some restraint, child,” Mrs. Hardin said.

  Raney excused himself, slipped outside.

  6

  The dinner crowd was gone, the diner nearly empty. He took a booth in the back, between the decorative jukebox and the hallway leading to the bathrooms. The waitress on duty looked like she’d spent the first fifty years of her life smoking cigarettes while standing under a hot sun. She came walking slowly toward him, backlit by the open door.

  “Where you from, darling?” she asked.

  He’d been out West almost two decades and still the locals knew at a glance. It was freeing, in a way: Raney could make up any past he liked.

  “I have a place near the Arizona border,” he said. “Just outside the Gila Forest.”

  “That ain’t what I asked.”

  He smiled.

  “New York, originally. What about you?”

  “Drifted west all the way from Granby, Texas. There ain’t too many places this town improves upon, but Granby makes the cut. Anyway, what can I get you?”

  “Roast chicken and a full pot of coffee,” Raney said. “I’ll be working late tonight.”

  “You bet. I’ll brew some fresh.”

  He pulled out a small pad and pencil, drew a rough map of the crime scene, placing stick-figure gender symbols where the victims/perpetrators lay. He imagined their last hours, their last moments, starting with Jack. Did the husband suspect the wife? He must have, but he must also have believed she did it to frighten him, teach him a lesson. Soon he’d hear the door lift open, look up to see her frowning down. Was the rape, or attempted rape, which had likely started as a play for something consensual, a kind of vengeance, something Jack could present Mavis with when she came to her senses: Look what you drove me to? If Mavis had meant to teach him a lesson, then the attempt failed all the way around. Jack’s last moments were too brutal, too ugly for any epiphany. He’d died as the worst possible version of himself.

  The waitress brought Raney’s coffee.

  “I made it extra strong,” she said. “If this don’t keep you awake, nothing will.”

  “I appreciate it.”

  He poured a cup, drank it straight, trying to burn away the craving sparked by that one small taste. He poured a second cup, loaded it with sugar.

  He turned his thoughts to the dead boy: a postpubescent mule-cum-murderer, not born for his job but raised in it. Jack, old enough to be his grandfather, was a dabbler by comparison. Did Wilkins mark the boy’s first kill? Maybe, but he had seen men killed, known their killers. He was better prepared for death than Jack. Overdose or suicide? The balance tilted in favor of suicide: he’d avenged his sister but failed to protect her. If someone opened that door, it would either be to arrest him or execute him. If no one came, death by needle beat starvation.

  Finally, the girl. It was the bruise on her cheek that stayed with Raney, a mark of innocence, made by the kind of backhand any girl is susceptible to in a thousand different situations, the crime fathers fight hardest to protect their daughters against. A connection he couldn’t help but make: Ella, his own daughter, was the same age as Jack’s victim. Raney felt an ache he’d become deft at suppressing. He wanted to call Sophia, demand to know that the daughter he’d never met was happy and safe. Was she dating anyone? Had she applied for college? But phoning would make for his worst betrayal yet. To Sophia, he was a member of the walking dead, and he would not allow himself to haunt her at this late date.

  The waitress set half a roast chicken and a side of greens on the table.

  “Anything else, darling?” she asked.

  Raney shook his head.

  “No thank you,” he said. “I’ve got enough here for a small army.”

  He watched her walk away, thought: And what are your secrets, darling? What have you done besides survive?

  7

  The casino was polished, upscale, every surface bright, gleaming. A maze of slot machines on one side; a floor-to-ceiling bank of TV sets behind the roulette tables; a bar in the back with metallic-blue chandeliers and stools that looked like Bakelite eggcups. A cordoned-off seating area faced a glass wall overlooking the valley. At 10:00 p.m. on a weeknight, the place was just under half full.

  Raney stalked the blackjack tables, studying the patrons. There was no shortage of fat men in gaudy shirts, but only one wore a jet-black toupee with the edges peeling back. He sat alone, losing consecutive rounds to the dealer, a young Navajo woman in a severely starched shirt and bow tie. She handled the cards mechanically, her mind somewhere in a future that didn’t include Bob Sims.

  Raney had no authority here. The slightest gaffe and they could escort him out on the grounds that he was bothering the clientele. He drifted back among the slot machines, took a notepad and pen from inside his blazer, wrote:

  Meet me at the bar. Urgent.

  He tore the paper from the pad, folded it in thirds, then returned to the tables. He waited for the croupier to collect Sims’s latest stack of chips before tapping him on the shoulder.

  “Bob?”

  Raney smiled, put on his most pleasant voice; Sims let his irritation show.

  “Do I know you?”

  “You know Mavis Wilkins. She asked me to give this to you.”

  He handed over the message, winked at the croupier. She didn’t seem to notice.

  “Am I getting served?” Sims asked. “Don’t tell me Mavis is pregnant.”

  They were seated at the table farthest from the bar. The glass wall gave onto a black vista dotted with stars and electric lights. Raney brushed back his blazer, let his badge show.

  “Can I buy you a drink?” he said.

  “I thought cops weren’t supposed to drink.”

  “Up here, I’m just a citizen. This is a courtesy call. I have news I thought you should hear in person. News I wish I didn’t have to share.”

  The barman came for their order. He was upwards of fifty, had the heft of a pro weight lifter, smiled like he’d never known an unkind thought.

  “Your pleasure, gentlemen?”

  “Vodka collins,” Sims said. “With extra lime.”

  “And a Jim Beam, please. Neat.”

  “Coming right up.”

  Raney watched him walk off, half-stepping to a jazz tune that was barely audible over the electric racket of the slot machines. Some people are just happy, he thought. Circumstance has nothing to do with it.

  “So what’s your news?” Sims asked.

  “Jack Wilkins is dead. Someone shot him and then cut his throat.”

  He was abrupt, trying to get a rise, hoping Sims’s reaction would tell him something: that he knew or didn’t know, was inclined to lie or tell the truth. Sims said nothing, showed nothing—just sat there massaging his temples, filing through a list of questions, uncertain which to ask first. When the barman returned with their drinks, Sims pounced on his. Raney heard ice bouncing off his teeth. After a while, Sims said:

  “Jesus. What about Mavis?”

  “She wasn’t hurt.”

  “When?”

  “We don’t know. We found them this morning.”

  “Them?”

  “There were two other victims, a boy and a girl. Late teens, ear
ly twenties.”

  “Who?”

  “We’re pretty sure they’re Mexican.”

  “Mexican?” Sims said. “Jack didn’t know any Mexicans. He hardly knew any whites.”

  “Whether he knew them or not, they died a few yards apart.”

  “Where was this?”

  “On the property.”

  Sims ran a hand over his mouth.

  “Shit,” he said. “I drive by there twice a day.”

  He was making the right expressions, saying the right words, but he was distracted, vacillating between this new reality he couldn’t ignore and the table he could just make out from where they sat. Raney understood the addiction, if not the vice.

  “I need to ask you a few questions,” he said.

  “What can I tell you?”

  “I understand you had a relationship with Mavis.”

  “We saw each other for a while, but that ended a year ago.”

  “Still, we have to look at all angles. You had an affair with a woman whose husband turned up in a triple homicide. And since it was a robbery-homicide, your motive rates high.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “I haven’t looked into your finances, but I think it’s safe to say that a man who spends his nights in a place like this has liquidity problems.”

  “You kidding me? Everyone should have my liquidity problems. I did damn good in my day. What I drop here is nothing. It’s charity.”

  “Charity?”

  “You should have seen this place pre-casino. You couldn’t even call it a shantytown. Now it’s all new developments. Cute little bungalows with wood floors and solid plumbing. If the casino went bust, they’d be right back where they were.”

  “And where would you be?”

  “What does that have to do with Wilkins?”

  “Nothing,” Raney said. “So if someone told me you’d asked Mavis for loans, they’d be—”

  “Full of shit. Check with Mavis. Every dinner was on me.”