by Billie Letts
“Listen, Kyle, I want you to know I feel bad about what happened to you after we talked at the radio station.”
“Oh, that’s fine.” Kyle screwed up his face in concentration, then stared at Mark, his expression absolutely blank. “What happened after we talked at the radio station?”
“Arthur told me you had to be hospitalized because our conversation upset you so much.”
“Well, don’t worry about it,” he said, memory kicking in. “Arthur puts me away whenever he feels like it. I get on his nerves sometimes.”
“I see.” Mark nodded to show how reasonable he sounded. “So when were you released?”
“Wasn’t. I’m just taking a break.”
“You’re taking a break?” Mark was dumbfounded.
“You look like her, you know. Like Gaylene.”
When Kyle’s eyes filled with tears, he reached into his shirt pocket and pulled out a carefully folded tissue. Inside were several capsules, which he popped in his mouth at the same time and then washed down with beer.
“Hey, are you supposed to do that?” Mark asked, obviously alarmed. “What did you take?”
“I don’t know. Demerol, Zoloft. Some Valium, maybe a couple of Darvocet.”
“That’s a lot of drugs, Kyle.”
“Hey, I don’t do drugs anymore. Been clean and sober for . . . well, for a long time.”
“Kyle, how did you get here?”
“Hitched.”
“Maybe I should take you back.” Mark sounded more than a little concerned.
“Nah. Arthur will come and get me.”
“When?”
“Depends on when he finds out I’m gone.”
Despite trying not to, Mark laughed.
“You sound like her, too.” Kyle upended his beer, then asked, “You ready for another?”
“No, thanks.”
“If you’re hungry—”
“Kyle, was Gaylene ever in jail?”
“No! Lord, no! Why would she go to jail? She wasn’t like me. She didn’t drop acid, didn’t do mushrooms or smoke pot. She didn’t shoplift, never grabbed some old lady’s purse. Hell, she never even stole a car.”
“Well, she sounds just about perfect.”
“The most perfect creature God ever made. She was an angel.”
Mark noticed that Kyle was a bit unsteady as he went to the fridge for more beer. The drugs or alcohol or both had started to kick in.
“She was so sweet, Nicky Jack. So gentle,” Kyle said, slurring the last two words. “She loved weeping willows and rainbows and rabbits and . . .” He wept then, openly, unashamed. Finally, he took three more capsules that he dug from his pants pocket.
Sensing that Kyle might soon be out of it, Mark said, “When you phoned me at the motel, you said you had something to show me.”
“That’s right. I do.” He staggered as he returned to the kitchen and took a cigar box from one of the shelves. When he brought it to the table, he said, “Everything in here was part of her in one way or another.”
He opened the lid, took out a silver key chain in the shape of a dove. “Gaylene gave me that for Christmas. And she found this in the river.” He put a cobalt blue marble on the table. “This was hers; she left it in my car,” he said, holding up a tube of lipstick. “We picked these the day we drove to Tahlequah for the bluegrass festival.” He removed some dried stems of goldenrod from the box. “And this here is her senior ring.”
“These things mean a lot to you, don’t they, Kyle.”
“Yes. That’s why I’m giving them to you.”
“Kyle . . .”
“I want you to have everything.”
“I can’t do that.”
“Nicky Jack, she’d want you to have them.”
“But that’s all you have left of her.”
“Oh, no. I have so much more. I have her memory. You got cheated out of that.”
September 5, 1968
Dear Diary,
I can’t believe what just happened. Danny Pittman called me! He really did! He told me he broke up with Becky last week because she was getting too serious. Then he asked me to go to the drive-in with him Saturday night. He said he’d wanted to ask me out for a long time. I must be dreaming.
Spider Woman
September 6, 1968
Mom said I could spend the night with Row Saturday and we could go to a movie if it was okay with Daddy. He grumbled about it, but finally said yes. Row has her license now and her folks said she could take their car tomorrow night. We’ll go to the drive-in where I’ll meet Danny, then after the movie I’ll find Row and we’ll go back to her house. I can’t wait! A date with Danny Pittman! Daddy will ground me for life if he finds out. Especially since Danny is a white boy.
Spider Woman
September 7, 1968
Danny was waiting for me on the last row of the drive-in just like he said he would. When I got to his car, he said we should get in the back seat so we could see the screen better. I was real nervous until we started talking about school. He’s a senior this year. Pretty soon, he put his arm around me and pulled me so close I bet he could feel my heart beating. Then he put his finger under my chin, turned my face to his and kissed me. It was just as wonderful and sweet as I dreamed it would be. When we stopped, I didn’t know what to say and I guess he didn’t either because he kissed me again. But this kiss was different. He stuck his tongue in my mouth and mashed his mouth so hard against mine that my teeth were cutting into my lips. He tasted like sour milk and he was sweating so much his forehead was slick. I tried to back away, but he pushed me down in the seat and ran one hand under my blouse, the other up my skirt, his fingers pulling at the elastic of my pants.
By then, his whole weight was on top of me and I could only take little quick breaths. I thought I might suffocate, so I bit down on his tongue. Real hard. When I did, he reared back, said shit and called me an Indian bitch, but I didn’t care. I shoved him as hard as I could and pulled myself out from under him. He didn’t try to stop me as I got out. I think his tongue was hurting too much.
I ran to Row’s car where she was watching the movie, but we left right then and went back to her house. Her folks were in bed, so they didn’t see me. Good thing because my top lip is swollen and bruised. Row got some ice to put on it, then she held my hand while I cried myself to sleep.
Spider Woman
September 9, 1968
Dear Diary,
Today was the first day of my junior year and on my way to my American history class, I passed Danny who was walking down the hall with his arm around Becky. He lied about breaking up with her so he could try to get into my pants. When he saw me, he smiled and said, “Hi, Gaylene,” like nothing had happened.
I’ve thought about telling Becky how he cheated on her, but I won’t. She’s never done anything to hurt me, so I’m not going to hurt her. I figure she’s going to be hurt enough by Danny Pittman.
Spider Woman
Chapter Twenty-three
Did she tell you why Gaylene was in jail?” Hap asked.
“She said it was a DUI.”
Hap took the last bite of a chocolate doughnut, licked his fingers, then brushed flakes of icing from his shirt while Mark opened his second Twinkie of the day.
“Do you trust her, Mark?”
“Lantana? I can’t think of a good reason why I should. She was drinking—and she’s obviously no stranger to vodka. In addition, she hates O Boy Daniels. I believe she’d say or do anything to cause him trouble, but I don’t know the reason. She wouldn’t talk about that.”
“Any chance he’s the one who told her Gaylene was arrested?”
“She claimed the information came from an anonymous source in 1978 when she was living in L.A. So, to answer your question: No, I don’t trust her.”
“Still, if it’s true, then somebody who was at the jail that night might be able to provide some answers. Or, if she
was stopped for DUI, she might’ve had a friend in the car with her. And that would most likely have been Kyle Leander or Rowena Whitekiller. Right?”
“Kyle didn’t know anything about it.”
“But maybe he lied to you. Suppose it would do any good for you to talk to Rowena again?”
“I don’t know.” Mark rubbed the stubble on his chin, unconcerned that he hadn’t shaved in two days. “Maybe.”
“I’ll ask for a copy of the arrest report and the jail blotter. And if Gaylene was jailed, there’ll be a prisoner property receipt.”
“What’s that?” Mark asked.
“A list of whatever she had on her person. Purse, keys, money, jewelry. Problem is, records weren’t computerized here until the mid-eighties. And even if those documents are available, the sheriff’s not required to hand them over. Now, if I could get a judge to back me up, I might be able to—”
“We don’t have a damn thing tied down, do we, Hap.”
“Not yet, but we’re not finished. I have a lead on a woman who was a secretary to the attorney in California who handled the adoption. Maybe . . .”
“Yeah,” Mark said. “Maybe.” He got up and went to Hap’s office window, where he looked down on Main Street.
“You need some rest,” Hap said. “Why don’t you go to your room, sack out for a few hours.”
“I’m going back to Arthur’s cabin, check on Kyle.”
“You worried about him?”
“Hap, that much medication could’ve killed him. I was afraid he might die in his sleep, so I sat and watched him breathe for a couple of hours after I got him to bed.”
“Well, do yourself a favor when you get back to town. Take the afternoon off. Read a book, go fishing. Hell, get drunk. Do something to put this out of your mind for a while.”
“Sure,” Mark said, but he didn’t sound convincing.
“If I have any luck at O Boy’s office . . .”
“You know what we have, Hap? Ifs. Nothing but a hell of a lot of ifs. If Lantana’s telling the truth, if Gaylene was in jail, if O Boy cooperates, if Rowena knows what happened, if—”
“Give it a little more time. You never know when or where the answers will surface.”
“If, Hap. We don’t know if the answers will ever surface.”
Both doors to the cabin were locked, but by looking through the windows, Mark could see that Kyle was not inside. Nobody—living or dead. No overturned chairs or broken glass caused by a staggering drunk, a stumbling addict. Nothing out of place.
The beer bottles left on the cabinet and table just hours before had disappeared. Even the quilt he’d used to cover Kyle had been folded neatly on the foot of the bed.
Behind the cabin, Mark inspected a windowless shed. The chain and lock that held the door was rusted and covered with cobwebs.
As he started back to his car, he noticed a graveled path leading away from the cabin and into a cover of pecan trees. Thirty yards from where he’d started, the path circled an outcropping of bedrock. That’s where he heard the rush of water.
Seconds later, he was standing on the bank of the river, water cascading over boulders upstream. From the sound, a long hidden memory surfaced.
He was five, maybe six, standing ankle deep at the edge of a clear stream, watching his father flyfishing near the far bank. His mother and his aunt Edna, both in bathing suits, sat behind him on boulders along the bank.
He knew they were talking about him because he heard his name. And though he didn’t understand the conversation, he could tell from her voice that his mother was angry.
“You’ve never had children, Edna, so how is it you’re so certain of what I should do?”
“Child psychologists say these children should be—”
“‘These children’?! We’re not talking about ‘these children.’ We’re talking about Mark. My son.”
“It’s easy to hide it from him now, Helen. He’s hardly more than a baby. But sooner or later, he’s going to find out.”
“You don’t know that.”
“Take my advice. Tell him now.”
“He wouldn’t understand.”
“No, he won’t. But keep telling him so that later on, when he does understand, he’ll be comfortable with it. It’ll be old news.”
“What makes you so sure, Edna? You read a magazine article at the beauty shop and now you’re an expert?”
“You’re setting yourself up for disaster, Helen. When he discovers the truth, he’ll feel like you betrayed him. And he might not be able to forgive you for it.”
The rain started as a light shower just minutes after Mark drove away from the cabin, but by the time he reached town, the sky had opened up.
He drove by the farmhouse where he’d met Rowena Whitekiller, intending to stop, but the driveway was crowded with cars and pickups. A funeral wreath hung on the front door.
He drove on to town but detoured past the pool hall when he saw Ivy’s van. He’d been mentally rehearsing what he would say to her the next time they were together, but the pool hall was not the place to deliver that speech.
As he drove by a liquor store, he decided to take Hap’s advice. He found a parking place just across the street, but by the time he got inside, he was soaked.
He asked the clerk for a bottle of Dimple Pinch, his favorite Scotch.
“Never heard of it,” she said.
He settled for a bottle of Dewar’s, took it to the counter and handed the woman his credit card.
Eyeing him suspiciously, she asked, “Aren’t you that Nick Harjo?”
“Mark Albright,” he said. “Just like the name on the card.”
“Well, you sure look like that guy in the paper.”
“Yeah, that’s what someone else told me.”
The rain was beginning to let up when Mark pulled into his motel, but apparently the deluge had sent the reporters running for cover. Even so, he wasn’t taking any chances. He parked in the back and slipped in the service entrance.
When he reached his room, he was pleased that no note was waiting beneath the door and no one was hiding in his bathroom.
He stripped down to his briefs, hung his dripping clothes on the shower rod and had just poured himself a drink when he saw that the message light on his phone was flashing. He sat on his bed and ran through the recordings—calls from Lantana, Teeve and Frances Boyd, Hap’s secretary. He was disappointed that Ivy hadn’t called.
Even with all the lights on, the room seemed dark, so Mark pulled back the drapes to discover that the sun was out. He opened the sliding glass doors and stepped onto the balcony.
The river, swollen now, frothed and foamed as it crashed against the boulders along the bank. And the needles of the pine trees, freshly washed to a deep, rich green, shimmered with droplets that blinked like clear crystals.
Later, he would remember hearing the first shot in the instant before the door behind him shattered, showering him with tiny fragments of glass. And he would remember the second shot, the bullet ricocheting off the brick wall only inches above his head.
But he would never remember the sound of the third shot or recall how he felt as his body lifted, then fell backward into the silence of the motel room.
Chapter Twenty-four
Even with an IV in his arm, an oxygen apron in his nose and EKG monitors attached to his chest, it took Mark a few minutes to figure out where he was when he regained consciousness. But he had no idea why he was there.
A woman in blue scrubs was standing beside his bed, writing on a clipboard. “Hello,” she said when she saw him watching her. “I’m Dr. Alkoff.”
Mark’s lips formed a response, but his brain didn’t follow through.
“How are you feeling?” she asked.
It took him a couple of tries, but he finally managed to mumble, “Like hell.”
“Headache?”
“Worst ever.”
“I’m not s
urprised. You have a knot the size of a golf ball right here.” She gingerly touched a spot just behind his ear. “Any dizziness? Nausea? Blurred vision?”
“No. What’s going on? Did I fall?”
“You don’t remember anything about what happened to you?”
“No.”
“Can you tell me what day it is?”
“Wednesday, I think.”
“Your name?”
“Mark Albright. Or Nick Harjo. Take your pick.”
She smiled. “Ordinarily that answer would get you a free ride to the psychiatric ward. But in your case, it works. I read about you in the paper.” She finished writing, then placed the clipboard on a table by the bed. “Any pain in your leg?”
Mark tried to raise his head, grimaced with the effort, gave up.
“Probably be best if you didn’t move around too much.”
“What’s wrong with my leg?”
“You have a bullet wound in your thigh.”
Still foggy headed, Mark was sure he’d misunderstood the doctor’s statement. “What did you say?”
“A bullet wound.”
He tried to reconcile what she’d said with an image of himself aiming a gun, but he couldn’t see it, couldn’t see himself buying a gun or even holding one.
“That’s impossible,” he said. “I don’t think I have a gun.”
“You didn’t do the shooting.”
“Who did?”
“Sheriff Daniels is waiting to talk to you about that,” she said.
“A bullet wound,” he said, reality beginning to kick in.
“Fortunately, it’s a through-and-through, didn’t involve bone, artery or nerve. Even missed muscle.”
“You know, I’ve treated dogs that’ve been shot, cats, even an iguana, but—”
“Then you know the drill. I gave you a local anesthetic so I could clean the wound and put in a few stitches. We’re loading you up on antibiotics to prevent infection. You’re not allergic to any medications, are you?”
“No.”
“We’ll give you Demerol for the pain, but first—”
