“Can’t you tell?” Sylvia wailed.
Steve looked at Clover. She raised an eyebrow and shrugged her shoulder. “He was shooting up.”
Steve nodded. “Stay here,” he said, then went inside. Two more uniforms wearing latex gloves were inside. It wasn’t pretty. They spoke for a few minutes, and then Steve went back outside.
“Did you see him do that?”
Clover nodded. “But, listen, Sheriff, more important. He was the one who killed the dead guy. He pushed that guy off the train.”
“What?” Sylvia was having no part of this. “No way. My brother may have been a drug addict, but that’s not his fault. No way did he kill anybody. Clover, I can’t believe you said that. No way!” She squared off against Clover. “You bitch!” She took a swing, but Clover ducked, and Sheriff Goddard grabbed her wrist. “Settle down now,” he said.
“Don’t you ever say anything like that about my brother again!” Sylvia shouted.
Steve held her fast. “Sylvia, we have to phone your parents. Where are your parents?”
With something new to focus on, Sylvia relaxed and gave the uniformed cop her parents’ phone numbers. Then she started to cry again, and Steve let her sit in the backseat of his cruiser and handed her a box of tissues from the trunk.
He went back to Clover.
“Now what?”
“He said that Milo Grimes paid him very well to beat that guy up and throw him off the train. Said he had proof.”
“Milo Grimes?” Steve wasn’t a bit surprised, but he had to act not only surprised, but shocked and doubtful. He didn’t know if he pulled it off.
“That’s what he said.” Clover kept looking past him at Sylvia.
Steve turned to see what she was looking at. Sylvia was giving her the evil eye. He turned his attention back to Clover.
“There she goes,” Clover said.
Steve turned around again, just in time to see Sylvia running down the middle of the street, thighs waggling in her little shorts, sandals clapping on the asphalt. “That’s okay,” he said. “You’re sure he said Milo Grimes?”
“I’m sure. Look at his hands. They’re all beat up. And he had plenty of money to put into . . . you know, his arm. His foot. Whatever, it was too much.” Clover looked at the ground and kicked the dirt driveway with the toe of her sneaker. “His name was on the train manifest. He took the train from Sacramento to Bonita that day. He was on the Western Express with the dead guy.”
“Are you kidding me with this stuff? Are you some kind of Nancy Drew all of a sudden?”
“Nope.” Clover looked up at him and smiled an adorably crooked little smile that was half naughtiness, half proud of herself. “I just can’t let York and those guys get punished because of something they didn’t do.”
In front of the uniforms and everybody else, Steve couldn’t help but give her a hug. “You’re amazing, Miss Clover. Miss Clover, girl detective.”
She pushed him away and said, “Now. Now that we know that York’s guys couldn’t have done it, can’t they stay?”
Steve let out a loud breath. “Sorry, kiddo. That ship has sailed.”
“There’s nothing we can do?”
“Sorry.”
Clover nodded, her self-satisfaction gone. “I’m going to go.”
Steve nodded, thanked her one more time, told her he’d be in touch, so be sure to be available, and then went into the house to make sure procedure was being followed to the letter. He better call Athena to tell her to forget dinner; he’d catch a burger. When he left here, he had to talk with Milo Grimes, and that might take a while.
~ ~ ~
Travis kept a bottle of Southern Comfort under the seat of his car. He knew it was against the law, but since he was the law, he didn’t think it was such a big deal. It was for times just such as this.
He reached under the seat while stopped at a stoplight, retrieved the bottle, unscrewed the cap and took a long pull. It was like alcohol syrup. Sickening in a way, and yet oh-so-delicious. “To Janis,” he said, which is what he always said when he took his first drink of Southern Comfort. He’d heard that it was Janis Joplin’s favorite drink, and he’d loved her ever since he was a kid and got his first look at her on the Pearl album cover. He took another drink, screwed the cap back on and wondered what he was going to do to keep his mind off what he was going to do later.
Eileen.
He didn’t like the thought of it, because she was so old, and so boozy, and stunk like cigarettes all the time, but she was a surprisingly good lay. Maybe that’s what he needed to take the edge off. He’d give her a shot of Janis Juice, then he’d give her a bigger shot of Travis Nectar, and he’d be good to go tonight.
He turned left from the wrong lane of traffic, cutting off a geezer in a Mercedes, gunned it and headed for the trailer park.
But when he walked up the stairs, bottle in hand, he heard voices inside. Female voices. He wasn’t sure what to do for a moment, so he hesitated, and the door opened.
“Hi,” Eileen said, and she looked kind of good, kind of fixed up.
“Hi.” He held up the bottle.
“Ooh, Southern Comfort,” she said, and held the screen door open for him. “C’mon in.”
Another woman sat on the sofa. She had red hair, like Eileen’s, only it was softer, not fried on the ends. She was younger, too, Travis could see, and they each had a drink, and it didn’t take long for him to see a few other possibilities in this situation. Yep, he thought, this just might take my mind off things for a little while.
“Brenda, this is Travis.”
“Hi, Travis,” Brenda said. “I’ve just been hearing all about you.”
“I’m better in person,” he said, and handed the bottle to Eileen. “I’ll take a stiff one, babe,” he said.
“Me, too,” she said and gave him a kiss on the cheek.
“Later,” he said, gave her a swat on the butt, and sat down on the couch next to Brenda.
“Didn’t expect to see you today,” Eileen said, and handed him a jelly glass half full of booze. “What with your moonlight job tonight and all.”
“Got antsy waitin’,” he said, and took a sip. He eyed Brenda’s tight T-shirt and all that was inside of it.
“What do you do?”
“Travis is a deputy sheriff,” Eileen said with obvious pride. “Tonight he’s gonna clean up that hobo camp down by the train tracks.”
“You are?”
Travis nodded and inched his hand over toward Brenda’s shoulder.
“How are you going to clean up that camp?” Brenda wanted to know. She looked at Eileen, but Eileen was looking at Travis with stars in her eyes. This guy is way too young for her, Brenda thought. Way too young. And she didn’t like the way he looked at her boobs, either. Especially right in front of Eileen. This guy was an ass.
“Me and some friends are just going to go down there and persuade them some.”
“How?”
“We got our ways. Now why don’t you tell me a little bit about yourself?”
“You going to hurt anybody?”
“Not unless they ask for it.”
Brenda moved away from Travis, who was leaning closer to her. “They’re harmless guys,” she said. “I don’t think you ought to hurt them.”
“If you don’t want me to, I won’t,” he said. Then he looked up at Eileen. “You told Clover to steer clear, didn’t you?”
Eileen nodded.
“Clover?” Brenda said. “You know Clover?”
“Clover’s my daughter. Do you know her?”
Brenda stood up. “I gotta go.”
“No,” Travis whined. “We were just getting cozy.”
Eileen didn’t like that at all. She took Brenda’s glass and said, “Thanks for stopping by. Let’s get together next week.”
“Yeah. Okay. Bye.”
Brenda left and Eileen sat down next to Travis, but he’d lost his taste for her. He wanted somebody younger. What he really wante
d was Clover, and the fact that she didn’t want him was a thorn in his brain. Eileen snuggled up to him, but he was no longer in the mood. When Brenda left, she took all the interesting possibilities out of the evening that stretched long before him. He downed his drink. “Fill me up,” he said.
“I’ll fill you up now if you’ll fill me up later,” she said with a naughty look.
“We’ll see,” he said, and realized he’d need a lot more booze in a lot bigger glass if he was going to be able to make that happen. He felt helpless, lost in a downward spiral. The only thing he could do was anesthetize. He took the glass of Southern Comfort that Eileen held out for him, then pulled her down onto his lap. He felt safe in her nasty little trailer for some reason, and since he had nowhere to be until dark—about ten-thirty—he could relax, at least for a while. Eileen had the kind of muscle control that could take his mind off of the activities ahead. He needed it.
~ ~ ~
West Wheaton is way too small a town, Brenda thought as she drove down toward York’s place. Clover was Eileen’s daughter. Eileen was doing Travis, the guy who was going to trash Denny and the guys that night. Whoa. Too weird.
She parked her car a block away on the street above, decided that carrying her purse made her look like a hooker, so she put her keys in her pocket, fluffed her hair, and locked the car.
Halfway down the block, she was surprised, or wished she was surprised, to see Clover approaching the top of the path from the other way. Brenda waited for her at the top of the path. While she waited, she watched Clover walk and tried not to be envious of her young, lithe body and the absolutely unself-conscious way her hair swung. She was adorable, even without makeup and styled hair. She could be fixed up a lot with just a touch of eye shadow and a razor cut on that hair that glowed with highlights Brenda had to pay good money to have put in her own hair. Brenda was no competition for this. Actually, Denny was a loser, and both she and Clover could do better.
“Hi,” she said as Clover approached.
“Hi.” Clover acted feline and wary. “Is Denny here?”
“I don’t know,” Brenda said. “I just got here.”
Clover stopped and looked at her with a soft expression that nevertheless demanded an explanation for Brenda’s presence.
“I heard there’s going to be some trouble down here tonight.”
“Oh?”
“I just came to warn the guys.”
“They already know,” Clover said.
Brenda nodded. “Think Sly’s down there?” she asked.
“Why?”
“Think they need some help? I mean they’re going to leave, right? Don’t you think they need some help? Where are they going to go?”
“Why are you so interested?”
“It isn’t Denny, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Brenda said. “I’m not after him. I just helped him out when he was hurt, is all.”
“And we’re grateful.”
Brenda was getting frustrated with this conversation, or lack of it. She wanted to do something, and she didn’t know what. “I just saw Travis over at your mom’s place, and got worried about the guys, that’s all. I don’t think Travis is . . .” She didn’t want to bad-mouth Clover’s mother’s boyfriend—or whatever he was—but she’d already started the sentence and didn’t know how to finish it.
“Such a nice guy?” Clover said.
Brenda nodded, looked again away from Clover’s clear-skin face and down at her own dusty shoe.
“He’s an ass,” Clover said. “What was he doing at my mom’s? How do you know my mom?”
“I met her at breakfast a few days ago. I like her.”
Clover seemed to like that. She emitted a small smile. “She needs friends. Good friends. Is Travis—what was he doing over there?”
“Drinking,” Brenda said. She’d leave the rest for Eileen to explain. “Listen, I just came to help if I can. I’m no trouble for you.”
“C’mon,” Clover said, and lightly tripped down the path. “Let’s go see who’s here.”
But what she found didn’t please her at all, and didn’t lighten the load on her mind for the approaching evening.
York sat in a cloud of mold dust amid an enormous pile of shredded newspaper, his hands busy tearing more of it into tiny strips. His legs were covered, and there was a shoulder-high pile all around him. Clover had seen him like this before, and it was never good. Sly paced back and forth, making an occasional violent gesture, as if arguing with another half of himself. Denny was not there.
“Daddy?” She knelt next to York and scooped moldy, crumbling paper from his legs. “Daddy?” she whispered. “You all right?”
“Clover, bless your heart,” York said. “Thank you for coming. There’s going to be blood tonight. I seen it in a dream. Blood on the path. I don’t want no violence, girl, you know I don’t. And I don’t know what to do next. Maybe you better take me to the shelter, hon. I don’t want to be a party to nobody getting hurt.”
“Nobody’s going to get hurt, York,” Clover said. “I found out who killed that guy, and the sheriff’s with him right now. He’s dead. Killed himself with drugs. I don’t think there’s going to be any problem down here tonight. They’re going to make you clear out, but that won’t be until probably tomorrow. You don’t worry about it.”
“I seen it,” York said, and his rough hand gripped her arm. “I seen it in a dream. You don’t mess with a full moon, girl.”
“I’ll take you home with me if you want,” she said, “but I’ve talked with the sheriff. Tomorrow we’ll find you a nice place to live.”
“I’d like to die under the stars,” York said, his pale, sightless eyes taking on that faraway look that frightened Clover. She knew that his health was bad and knew that one day she’d come down the hill and find nothing left of him but his shell, but she wasn’t ready for it.
Not now, not ever.
Clover looked over to see that Brenda was talking quietly with Sly, and her presence seemed to have calmed him down. Clover sat down on the ground and held York’s hand, hoping that she could have the same comforting influence. “Know where Denny is?” she asked.
“No,” he said, and his hands reached for more newspapers to shred, but Clover just held his hand and stroked the wrinkled, spotted back of it.
“These things are all mildewed and rotting,” Clover said. “Breathing this dust can’t be good for your lungs.”
“Blood on the path,” York said.
“Where’s Denny?” she asked.
York shook his head.
She stood up, scooped more of the stinking newspapers away from him and then went over to where Brenda and Sly were having an earnest conversation. “Know where Denny is?” Clover asked without waiting for them to acknowledge her.
“Went for supplies,” Sly said.
“What kind of supplies? When?”
“Self-defense supplies,” Sly said too loudly, loud enough for York to hear. Then he lowered his voice. “We’re going to war tonight.”
“I don’t think so,” Clover said, and told him about Norman.
“That doesn’t cut any ice with Deputy Dawg,” Sly said, and Clover figured he was right about that. “He and those railroad guys, they’ve got a case of the red ass, and they’re thinking they’re going to evict us tonight. They’re wrong.”
Clover saw Brenda put a calming hand on his arm, and while he didn’t shake it off, he didn’t much acknowledge it, either. Clover had to take a mental step back and see the two of them as they were, standing in front of her, instead of looking at Brenda as a rival for Denny’s affections, and at Sly as a bum and a bad influence. They kind of looked right for each other, in some weird way. Their ages matched a little closer, and since Sly got a haircut and shave and cleaned up a little with a new polo shirt on, they looked like they could be right at home, strolling through the park together.
Except for that wild look in Sly’s eyes. His eyes were dark and mysterious, and at the
moment they were dangerously unreadable. Clover had seen him off and running; Denny had told her even worse stories. Denny said when Sly went into this military mode, he shouted orders and talked in code in his sleep. Every now and then, he’d peer over the edge of his little bedroom surroundings, suspicious-like, and Denny said he knew that Sly was deep asleep, but his eyes were open and looking around for gooks. Eerie.
Well, whatever it was, it was Sly’s problem, not Clover’s. She had enough to worry about with Denny, and he wasn’t even here. Maybe he’d found someplace else to be for the day. That would be good. “Okay,” she said. “I’m going. Tell Denny I’ll be back later.”
“War is not for women,” Sly said, and gently pushed Brenda away from him. “You both go on. Come back tomorrow for the body count.”
“No conflict,” York yelled.
“You may not want it,” Sly yelled back, “but you got it.”
“Blood,” York said, and shook his head. “Blood on the path, goddamn it.” Then he pointed his face at the late-afternoon sky and apologized to God.
Clover stopped at York on her way out, put her hand on the old man’s shoulder. “I’ll be back for you, York,” she said quietly, “and I’ll help you get to somewhere nice. It’s too late today, but we’ll get you settled someplace warm and wonderful with nice hot food and good warm baths, okay? Tomorrow, okay?”
“Go on home, Clover,” York said.
“Okay, York? Tomorrow, okay?”
“Okay.”
“You going to be all right tonight? You just stick to no conflict and they’ll have no beef with you. Tell them I’m going to take care of you tomorrow, okay?”
“Go on.”
“I love you, Daddy,” she whispered to him.
His old weathered hand patted hers. Then he cleared his throat and shooed her away.
“Brenda?” Clover called.
Brenda finished up her conversation with Sly and joined her, and they single-filed up the path, Clover leading the way.
“I’m scared for them,” Brenda said.
“The sheriff will take care of things,” Clover said, and just as she said that, Steve Goddard’s cruiser stopped right at the top of the path.
“They’re expecting trouble tonight,” Clover said as soon as Steve got out of his car, “from Travis.”
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