Dead Body Language

by Penny Warner

  Dan brushed his hair back slowly. His eyes darted suddenly to a dark corner of the office. I turned to see a very fluffy gray cat creep out from under Boone’s desk, circle around a pile of papers, and finally make itself at home in an open filing cabinet drawer.

  “What’s that?” I asked. I’m sure I looked a little horrified.

  “That’s Cujo.”

  “Cujo?”

  Dan leaned over and gave the cat a scratching under the chin.

  “Boone doesn’t have a cat. Boone hates cats. What’s it doing here?”

  “She’s mine. I brought her with me.”

  “You brought your cat?” I grimaced. Wait until Boone came back. The fur would really hit the fan. I made a mental note to be there. I wasn’t big on cats either. They always creep around the house and then jump out at you when you least expect it. With a dog, you know where you stand. At least with mine, I do.

  “Did that lady find you all right?” Dan said.

  “What lady? Oh. You mean Lacy Penzance?” I’d almost forgotten her. I checked my watch. I still had a few minutes until our meeting. “Yeah, thanks. How’d you know where I was?”

  I looked him over as I spoke, trying to figure out how much of what he had told me was the truth. Except for the eyes, he didn’t much look like Boone. Dan was more muscular, with large arms and broad shoulders. Boone was kind of flabby and stooped. And Dan’s smooth, tan face set off his deep-set eyes better than Boone’s ruddy, splotchy complexion. Little of his appearance confirmed him as Boone’s brother.

  “I watched you go into that café after you checked in this morning. Guess you didn’t know I was here.” He looked out the window, then looked back at me. “It’s a nice view from these windows. You can see just about everything, from the main street to the Sierras.” He smiled a strange smile, kind of a smirk.

  I suddenly blushed and felt the heat turn my neck into raspberry kisses. God, I hoped I hadn’t tugged at my underwear or tripped on my way to the Nugget while this voyeur was watching me.

  “Did you call the sheriff about this mess?” I asked, changing the subject.

  He scratched his beard, much like he’d stroked the cat. “Not yet. I was sort of checking it out myself first, to see if there was really a reason to report it. Besides, Boone doesn’t like cops much. You probably know that. I don’t think he’d want them sniffing around his office.”

  He was right. Boone hated cops. But that was no reason not to call the sheriff if someone had broken into his office. Unless …

  “Are you some kind of investigator too, like your brother?” I asked, fishing a little. The pond still looked murky.

  “Not really. I’m … a teacher. Was. At the University of New Mexico. I also taught a few classes at the C.F.—the correctional facility,” he said, glancing back toward the window. Though he wasn’t looking at me, I think I followed him fairly well. “I’m from New York originally. Needed a change, so I moved to New Mexico, but I got kind of burned out in the desert and thought I’d check out the job market here. Make a career move. Boone seems to like it here.”

  “Flat Skunk is probably very different from True or False, or wherever you’re from.”

  He showed me those teeth again, white and evenly spaced, with a tiny chip off one of the front ones. When you stare at people’s faces all the time you really notice the details of their mouths.

  “Truth or Consequences. Actually Flat Skunk doesn’t seem so different. Country music stations around the dial. Home-cooked meals at the café. Cowboy hats and pickup trucks. Of course, it’s nothing like New York. You know, you don’t sound like you’re from around here, either, with that accent of yours.” Dan Smith raised a dark eyebrow. “Where’d you get it?”

  In the corner of my eye, I caught flashes of light coming from the hallway. I grabbed my backpack and headed for the door.

  “Meningitis,” I said, and sprinted for my office.

  Lunging for my office door, I saw the bright light of the TTY, a teletypewriter device for the deaf, flashing urgently through the translucent glass pane.

  I dug through my backpack and located my keys at the bottom of the abyss. Jamming them into the lock, I pushed open the door, and dove for the phone. But by the time I set the phone receiver on the TTY, the flashing white light had been replaced by the small red wink of the answering machine. “Damn phone,” I said out loud.

  I plopped my overloaded bag onto the paper-stacked desk and sank into my padded swivel chair for a quick stress-releasing spin, which only made me dizzy. I had a deadline to deal with—I would have to leave the Boone Joslin/Dan Smith puzzle alone for a few moments and get back to my own mystery puzzle. Hoping for some fresh inspiration in the office environment, I dug out the embellished napkin and spread it out on top of a frog-leg recipe I was preparing for Saturday’s edition.

  “Ho-hum,” I said as I scanned the office for clues that would help me find a solution to my locked-room puzzle. But I got no assistance from my color poster of the cherried up ’57 Chevy I hoped my “needs-work” car would one day be, nor the reproduction of Wayne Thiebaud’s “Lipstick”—the one that makes a routine cosmetic look like a menacing bullet.

  In my office, the walls not papered with “Far Side” cartoons, MAD Magazine art, and comic book covers are lined with books on subjects like women who’ve cycled cross-country, hitchhikers who’ve traveled the universe, and desktop publishing manuals for the computer-addicted. Nothing led me to a brilliant revelation. Even my Little Lulu and Heckle And Jeckle collection let me down.

  The blinking red light of the answering machine kept distracting me from my murderous thoughts. Wondering who had called always drove me crazy. Damn. When were those brilliant telephone scientists going to create a printout answering machine for the deaf that I could afford? I would be in the dark until Miah decided to get his cute little butt to work. According to my watch, he was long overdue.

  At that moment, Lacy Penzance stuck her head in the door. In the confusion of seeing Boone’s office amok, meeting Dan Smith, working on the mystery puzzle, and missing the telephone call, I’d forgotten our appointment. I got up and tried to cover.

  “Ms. Penzance, I was just—” I puffed up my cheeks and shook out my hair, then searched my desk for an ending. I was having problems with closure today.

  Lacy Penzance didn’t seem to notice. I checked my watch again. Where was Miah? I really needed an interpreter for this tight-lipped woman.

  She sat down in the padded folding chair across from my desk and removed her sunglasses. I reached for my tape recorder. She looked at it, then squarely at me.

  “No recording, please. What I have to say is personal.”

  I tried to explain my need for a backup listener but she shook her head. I let it go.

  “I want to place an ad in your newspaper—an anonymous ad. I’m … trying to locate my sister. We were … separated at a young age, and I’ve just learned she may be living in the Mother Lode area somewhere. I understand your newspaper is distributed all along the gold chain, so there’s a chance she might see my message—or perhaps someone who knows her might see it. I’ve written everything here.”

  I may have missed a few words but that was the gist of it. She pulled an envelope from her purse, opened it, and passed me a folded sheet of lavender paper. Her finely lined hands, trimmed with gaudy gold rings, trembled slightly. I unfolded the paper and read the neat, curlicue printing. She had probably practiced those circles and swirls a lot in junior high school.

  “Anyone knowing the whereabouts of Risa Longo, write in care of the Eureka!”

  The ad promised a $5,000 reward. I looked up at her.

  “How much will that be?” she asked. She sat with her back very straight, gripping her purse with whitened fingers.

  “Five thousand dollars?”

  She blinked and pulled back. “I’m sorry. How much?”

  “Five thousand dollars for information about your adopted sister? You’re going to get all
kinds of weirdos if you put that in the ad. Especially around here, where it doesn’t take much for someone to catch gold fever.”

  She considered this, then said, “Just make it ‘reward’ then.” She pulled her designer wallet from her designer purse and opened it, revealing lots of designer green.

  “Now, how much?”

  I was still having trouble comprehending her request, but it had nothing to do with my lipreading skills. Maybe she was eccentric—wasn’t that the stereotype of the lonely, rich widow?

  “It’s a dollar a word—ten dollars minimum. We’re probably looking at about fifteen bucks. If you want a bigger display ad—”

  “Here’s twenty.” She separated a crisp bill from its comrades.

  “I’ll bill you. Shall I send the responses to your home or—”

  “No,” she interrupted again, placing the money on the desk and tucking her wallet back into her purse. “I don’t want anyone to know I placed the ad—not even the mailman. You know how people are around here. Everyone knows everyone else’s business. I’ll be by to see if there’s been any response. Will it be in tomorrow’s paper?”

  “Saturday. It’s a weekly.” A real fan. “I’ll write you a receipt.”

  As she rose to leave, I stood up in response. She replaced the peach-tinted glasses she had removed earlier and curled a lock of hair behind one ear, exposing a small thin scar just above the ear. I looked at her eyebrows—the same tiny lines just under the ridge. Maybe she wasn’t forty-something after all.

  Lacy pulled the glasses off, wiped the fog that had formed on the lenses with a tissue from the box on my desk, and I noticed her watery eyes. She replaced the glasses and stuffed the tissue into her purse. “I hope the ad will help—” She stopped.

  I waited, then said, “What about hiring a detective? I mean, that’s what most people do when they want to find someone. Boone Joslin—”

  “I hired Mr. Joslin about a week ago, paid him a large advance, and haven’t heard a word since. I’ve been trying to contact him but apparently he’s on one of his notorious ‘vacations.’ I haven’t much …”

  I figured she said “time,” but it could have been “charm” or “lamb” or any number of words with an m in it. Of course, “charm” and “lamb” didn’t make any sense, but then neither did “time” when you thought about it.

  Before I could ask any more questions, Deputy Arnold burst into the room, dangling a set of keys from his fingers.

  “Oops. Excuse me. Sorry to burst in, but I hoped I’d find you here, Ms. Penzance. Found these after you left. Must have fallen out of your purse when I bumped into you, back at the café. Tried to catch up with you but I got sidetracked by the sheriff. Then you were gone. Thought you might need them.” He grinned a hero’s grin.

  Lacy Penzance took the keys from the deputy with a smile but didn’t thank him. She glanced at me one last time, and left.

  I didn’t see her again until the funeral.

  “REWARD!”

  I keyed in the last word of Lacy Penzance’s ad on my desktop publishing software using a fancy Galleria font, then added a graphic of a kid waving her arms to attract attention. It hadn’t been easy getting rid of Mickey. He had wanted to chat. I suspected he’d held off returning the keys just to have an excuse to stop by.

  But I was too busy trying to make a headliner out of a common bar brawl. Some guy had refused to leave the Spittin’ Cotton Saloon when “politely” asked. A hundred years ago he probably would have been tied up with a good solid rope, hoisted up the nearest tree, and hanged for his misbehavior. There was a lot of that going around back then, especially in nearby Placerville, once known as Hangtown. Dummies still hang in effigy from the tops of restaurants and saloons there, in an effort to attract the tourists. This time the guy got off easy. Deputy Arnold took him down to the drunk tank for the night.

  Flat Skunk currently seems to be going through its adolescence, caught between two cultures, the past and the present. Somewhat like myself, being deaf in a hearing world. Skunk is having a difficult time figuring out whether to cling to its rustic tough-guy image of an old-fashioned gold-rush town or to embrace the 1990’s interpretation of a cutesy neo-yuppie village. In spite of all the cappuccino stands and porcelain nail “shoppes” popping up like pimples on a preteen, the old mining town wasn’t about to change without a tantrum or two.

  The next interruption in my morning occurred around eleven o’clock—a flashing light on the telephone. I lifted the receiver, placed it on the TTY handset, and typed “GA,” meaning “Go Ahead,” on the keyboard. As glowing red letters began to appear on the monitor, I read the message inching its way across the console.

  “CONNOR ITS MIAH. CALLED EARLYER BUT MISSED U. SORRY IM NOT THERE YET BUT COMIX CITY IN WS HAS THE SGT ROCK IVE BEEN LOOKING FOR. KNEW U WOULDNT MIND. ILL WORK LATE TO MAKE UP. BE THERE SOON. OK? GA.”

  The “U” meant “you” and the “WS” meant “Whiskey Slide” but I was half tempted to correct his spelling before I replied. I promised myself to get Miah a portable spellchecker and a typing tutor with the next paycheck. But I was glad he had the portable TTY with him, which plugs into designated public telephones. At least we could keep in touch.

  I typed back, “OK MIAH BUT ONLY IF U GET ME A FOX AND CROW OR LITTLE LOTTA WAIT MAKE THAT BETTY AND VERONICA—1950–1955 THX. AND HURRY NEED YOU DESPERATELY GA.”

  “NO PROBLEMO. HOW ABOUT ANOTHER LITTLE LULU TOO? SEE YOU SOON BEST BOSS IN THE WORLD. GA. SK.”

  Signing off with an “SK” for “Stop Keying,” I went back to my work. I received several other phone calls but only one on the TTY. The rest were recorded by the answering machine for interpreting later by Miah. The TTY message was a strange one that came in just before I took a lunch break. The caller had typed “lacy penzance,” then hung up. But my deadline didn’t allow much time for contemplating that little mystery.

  Around one o’clock my stomach started asking questions, so I “saved” my newspaper copy in the computer and called it a morning. After securing my office, I stopped next door to check on Dan Smith. I wondered if he had discovered anything more about the upheaval in Boone’s office or had had any news from Boone himself. No one answered my knock. I tried the door. Locked.

  I grabbed a quick Cornish pastie at Dilligaf’s deli-bar-bait shop-and-video store across from the cemetery. The tourists always ask who “Dilligaf” is. I like to tell them he was a famous outlaw from the forty-niner days—they love that—but it’s really an acronym for “Does It Look Like I Give A Fuck.” A little redneck humor from the owner.

  I hopped on my mountain bike, rode no-handed three miles down to the Miwok Reservoir, and settled under a bristlecone pine to eat my lunch. Watching the water slap the shore, I ate a cold, soggy meat pie that smelled like my ex-lover’s Nautilus bag, and read my competition—the daily-except-weekends Mother Lode Monitor. The self-promoting rag was strictly a glorified ad for where to dine, sleep, and spend money in the gold country. The Eureka!, although smaller, was much classier.

  I was alone by the small, secluded reservoir—just the way I like it—except for Sluice Jackson, the ragged old miner, wearing his floppy beaded hat. The beads are actually dangling earrings that Sluice makes and sells to the tourists as he shuffles up and down the main street. At the moment he was hunched over a leather bag mumbling to himself. He looked around anxiously as he pulled out what appeared to be a small metal dowel glinting in the sunlight. Another one of his old mining tools, no doubt.

  I had to admit, the old guy made me a little nervous. Mainly because I couldn’t understand a word he said when he talked to me. But then, I don’t think most folks really understood him. Sometimes, when working late at night down at the newspaper office, I’ve seen him on his way to the cemetery where he does odd jobs, talking to thin air as if he were Cosmo Topper entertaining spirits.

  Sluice caught me watching him. He tightened the straps on his backpack, rubbed his wayward eyebrows, then started in my directi
on. I quickly packed up my lunch remnants and, tossing a few crusts to the squirrels, made a leap toward my bike. I felt sorry for Sluice, but I wasn’t in the mood for a mumble-fest. It was hard enough reading the lips of those who spoke meaningful sentences.

  Too late. He toddled faster than I leaped.

  “I din’t take it. I din’t do it. It wern’t me. It wern’t.” He was shaking his head and clutching his leather sack and talking to me as if I had accused him of stealing.

  I smiled weakly and tried to look as though I knew what he was talking about.

  “It wern’t me,” he said one last time, then he turned and walked away. I watched him go down the hill toward town, shaking his head, still in some kind of denial. I wondered, briefly, what he didn’t take. He probably didn’t know himself.

  It was just after one forty-five when I arrived back at the Penzance Hotel. As I reached the top step I spotted Miah in the hallway, arms loaded with comic books.

  “Hey, Miah,” I called. I shook my index finger in the air, made a twist at my nose with the manual alphabet letter “F”—which looks like the common gesture for “OK”—then opened and closed my thumb and index finger at my mouth, signing: “Where’s my Fox And Crow?”

  He smiled apologetically and shook his head, tossing the too-long blond forelock over his eyes. He said something aloud but I couldn’t make it out at that distance. I gave the universal sign for “What?” by screwing up my face.

  “Wait—” he managed to sign, wiggling his fingers with difficulty under the armload of comics. He disappeared into his tiny shop, then returned moments later carrying a few comics in one hand and signing with the other.

  “No Fox And Crow—sorry. Got a couple of Little Lulus. And check this out—a 1956 Betty And Veronica. You want it?”