Cold Skies

by Thomas King

  God.

  No. Best to forget all this cloak and dagger stuff, drive home, and put the groceries away. He could make a pot of coffee, eat toast with a little jam, sit on the sofa, and read a book.

  Have a nap.

  Thumps snapped his seat belt in place and was reaching for the ignition when the door to Number 11 opened.

  Twenty-Seven

  Jayme Redding slipped out of Number 11, closed the door behind her, and took out her cellphone, all in one fluid motion. She was in the middle of dialing a number when she spotted the Volvo. Thumps gave a little wave, started the engine, slipped the clutch, and let the car idle its way to where she was standing.

  Redding was smiling and didn’t look at all like a felon who had just been busted.

  “Mr. DreadfulWater,” she said. “You are certainly full of surprises.”

  “Why is it,” said Thumps, “that you can never find a reporter when you need one?”

  “Are you asking as acting sheriff?”

  “Not yet.”

  “I could use a coffee.” Redding opened the passenger door and tossed her purse onto the back seat. “And a doughnut. My treat. Any place in this town make good doughnuts?”

  THERE WERE ANY number of spots in Chinook that could come up with a decent cup of coffee, but there was only one establishment that made doughnuts that were worth eating.

  Dumbo’s.

  Dumbo’s was a dog-shit brown, one-storey clapboard at the end of Main Street. The building sat in the middle of a parking lot and resembled a double-wide that had been renovated to look like an abandoned service station.

  Thumps was at the door when he realized that Redding was still standing by the car, frozen in place.

  “You’re kidding.”

  “You wanted good doughnuts.”

  “Sure,” she said, “but is it safe to eat in there?”

  “That depends on how much you like doughnuts.”

  “I better bring my purse.” Redding opened the rear door of the car and leaned in. “Just in case I have to shoot my way out of the place.”

  The interior of Dumbo’s was the same as any number of beat-to-shit western cafés. Tables with plastic cloths and mismatched chairs. Wood floors. Bathrooms marked “Stags” and “Does.”

  Thumps could feel Redding’s body tense as she stepped inside and was hit with the smell of coffee, grease, and the dank odour of wet clothes left too long in a plastic bag.

  Redding wrinkled her nose. “You bring a lot of women here?”

  Morris Dumbo was sitting where he always sat, behind the counter in his brown Naugahyde recliner, watching a baseball game on a small black-and-white set. On the wall just under the big Budweiser clock, Morris had used a black marker to write, “I Don’t Serve Those I Don’t Like,” in large block letters.

  “Hey, chief. Long time, no see.”

  Morris was a skinny man with a thin, grizzled face and bright blue eyes. He had a thin, razor mouth and short brown hair that sat atop his bony head like a scrub brush that had been nailed to a brick.

  Morris eased himself out of the recliner. “Who’s the doll?”

  Thumps felt Redding draw in a deep breath and hold it.

  “Couple cups of coffee, Morris.” Thumps herded Redding to a table near the back wall. “And two doughnuts.”

  Morris threw a dirty towel over his shoulder and strolled to the gun-metal-grey coffee urn near the register. “Cake or raised?”

  “The old-fashioneds are good,” said Thumps.

  Redding nodded, her eyes never leaving Morris.

  “Two old-fashioneds,” said Thumps. “Please.”

  Morris took his time getting to the table with the plates and cups. He quickly ran the towel around the Formica and set a knife and fork in front of Redding.

  “I made your old-fashioned plain, chief, on account of the diabetes,” said Morris, “though if you ask me it’s nothing but a hoax.”

  “Diabetes?”

  “Damn straight,” said Morris. “Who do you think profits if the sugar industry goes under?”

  Redding was a fast learner. Thumps could see she wasn’t even tempted to ask.

  “What about you, sweet pants?” said Morris. “You like a little sugar in your life?”

  “I think the nice man is talking to you, darling,” said Redding.

  Morris’s face darkened. “You calling me a fag?”

  Thumps closed his eyes. “Just a joke, Morris.”

  “You don’t joke about shit like that.” Morris stared at Redding as though he hoped his eyes could slice through her. “You might want to put a muzzle on your bitch.” Then he slapped the towel over his shoulder and marched back to his recliner and the game.

  Redding breathed out and took a bite of the doughnut. “You didn’t warn me that this place was trapped in nineteenth-century Alabama.”

  “Morris is Morris.”

  “Morris is an asshole,” said Redding, keeping her voice low. “But you’re right.”

  “About?”

  “He makes good doughnuts.”

  Thumps would have preferred his old-fashioned doughnut with glaze, but eating it plain made the enterprise seem somewhat virtuous and almost healthy.

  “Okay,” said Redding. “Ask away.”

  Thumps took a bite of his doughnut and let the flavour fill his mouth. Since it wasn’t glazed, maybe he’d have a second.

  “I imagine you want to know what I was doing at the motel.”

  “Nope.”

  “No?” Redding frowned. “Why not?”

  “Because you’ll just lie.”

  “You certainly know how to hurt a girl’s feelings.”

  “And,” said Thumps, “it’s not my problem, so I don’t care.”

  “I wanted to get photos of the crime scene.” Redding pushed the doughnut around her plate with a fork. “You’re not going to tell the sheriff about my being in the room?”

  “Did you find anything?”

  “No.”

  “Did you take anything?”

  “No.”

  A second doughnut was probably out of the question. Thumps was sure that doughnuts were on the “do not eat” list, with or without glaze. Still, it hadn’t been a particularly large doughnut.

  Redding stood and brushed the crumbs off her lap. “Is it safe to go to the bathroom?”

  “Think of it as an adventure.”

  Redding kept her back to Morris. “When I get to the hotel, I may have to burn my clothes.”

  As soon as Redding had disappeared into the back, Morris slid out of his chair and came over with the coffee pot.

  “She belong to you, chief, or are you just renting her?”

  “She’s a reporter. For a paper in Sacramento.”

  “The hell you say.”

  “She’s doing a series on doughnuts.”

  Thumps had never heard Morris laugh, and he wasn’t sure that the noise coming out of the man’s mouth qualified as that. It sounded more like a dull band-saw blade cutting through plywood. Morris filled both cups and wiped his eyes with the towel.

  “You got some white in you, chief.” Morris’s teeth were large and yellow, like old ivory. “No doubt about that. A series on doughnuts? You’re a regular Abbott and Costello.”

  Thumps smiled back.

  “Reporter like that don’t come all this way for doughnuts.” Morris leaned in. “This is about those bodies, isn’t it?”

  “You’ll have to ask her that yourself.”

  Morris wiped his hands on the towel. “Woman like that got no time for Morris Dumbo. She’s too good for an old cracker like me, and I ain’t got the inclination to waste any time with the likes of her. You finish up your doughnut and get her out of here ’cause she’s not welcome.”

  “She said your doughnut was the best she’s tasted.”

  “You see that sign.” Morris retreated to his chair. “It means what it says.”

  THUMPS HADN’T NOTICED that Redding hadn’t returned until
Morris came by with the pot again.

  “Two refills,” he said. “After that you start paying again.”

  “I’m fine.” Thumps put his hand over his cup and turned toward the restrooms.

  “Maybe she’s having her period,” said Morris. “She damn well better not make a mess in there.”

  “Just the bill.”

  “Maybe she’s dumped you for some guy with a better car.” Morris carried the coffee pot back to the counter. “That’s the way women are. No pleasing them. You think you’re going to get into her pants with a doughnut and a cup of coffee?”

  The thought had come out of nowhere, and Thumps was not happy to have it arrive. “Is there another door?”

  “Sure,” said Morris, waving his hand toward the back. “Jesus, you think she’s already run off on you?”

  The women’s room was down a long hall past the men’s room. Between the two was a door that led to the back parking lot. Thumps knocked softly on the door to the women’s room. Nothing. He knocked harder.

  “Jay, you all right?”

  The bathroom was empty.

  Morris was waiting for him. He was smiling, his big yellow teeth looking as though they wanted to bite someone. “You order a Cadillac?”

  Thumps groaned a little groan. “A black Escalade?”

  “Saw one pull into the parking lot,” said Morris. “And I saw it pull out.”

  “Great.”

  “Shit, Geronimo, no wonder we kicked your ass.” Morris started cackling and choking all at the same time. “You can’t even keep your women in line.”

  There was a Mason jar near the register with a handwritten sign that said, “Tips Expected.”

  Thumps paid the bill but put the change in his pocket.

  The afternoon sky had settled on robin-egg blue. It wasn’t hot yet. That would come later. But it was warmer than it had been in the morning. The Volvo was basking happily in the sun. And maybe that’s what he should do. Go home, break out the chaise longue, and lie in the backyard until the day ran into evening and the air turned cold.

  Thumps was halfway to the car when he realized what had happened.

  “Shit!”

  He opened the back door and checked the rear seat, but it was as he had suspected. His jacket was still there, crumpled into a ball, but the manila envelope was gone.

  Twenty-Eight

  Thumps pulled in behind a dark-blue car that was parked in front of his house and was halfway up the walk with his groceries before he saw Ora Mae Foreman sitting on his front porch. Pops and Freeway were sprawled at her feet.

  “You get a dog?”

  “Not mine.”

  “Good,” said Ora Mae, “’cause this hound has got a serious digestive problem.”

  Thumps hadn’t seen Ora Mae in over a year, not since she and Beth had broken up and Ora Mae had moved to Chicago or New York or California or wherever it was that injured relationships went to die.

  “Your neighbour brought over a piece of apple pie. Trixie?”

  “Dixie.”

  “Whatever,” said Ora Mae. “Cooley said it was pretty good.”

  “Cooley?”

  “He came to leave you a message. When you didn’t show, he ate the pie.”

  Ora Mae held up a plate. A couple of crumbs were the only indication that there had ever been anything on it.

  “Cooley ate my pie?”

  “He said you wouldn’t mind, seeing as how you’re diabetic.” Ora Mae paused for a moment. “When did that happen?”

  “I have to put the food away.”

  “You do that,” said Ora Mae. “Then we need to talk.”

  Thumps had forgotten about the ice cream. It had begun to soften. He could feel it moving in the carton. He set it upright in the freezer. Not a problem. A few hours and all would be well. Thumps lined up the perishables on the counter, making decisions about their positions in the refrigerator. But now that Cooley had effectively emptied it, he was tempted to take the time and clean the shelves. He had done that last month, but with Ora Mae wanting to talk, he could see doing it again.

  “I made a pot of coffee,” said Ora Mae. “Didn’t think you’d mind.”

  “Coffee’s good.”

  “But you don’t want to talk.”

  “Not much to talk about.”

  “You’re not curious?” said Ora Mae. “About where I’ve been or what I’ve been doing or what happened with Beth and me?”

  Thumps got two cups from the dish drainer. “Not really.”

  Ora Mae watched Thumps fill her cup. “This is why men die alone.”

  She looked older now. There were signs of grey at her temples, and her skin was lighter than he remembered. It had been a soft maroon, deep and radiant. Now her face was more chestnut, as though the darker tones had been worn away.

  Not that he was going to mention any of this.

  “Went to Salt Lake to spend some time with my sister and her kids,” said Ora Mae. “Taya’s thirteen and Derron is eleven. They were cuter as babies.”

  Thumps put a little sugar in his coffee and swirled it slowly with his spoon.

  “That lasted two weeks.” There was sadness in her voice, as though she had lost something precious. “Then I drove up to Seattle. Always wanted to give the coast a try.”

  When he was a cop in Northern California, Thumps had gone to Seattle several times as part of law enforcement get-togethers. It wasn’t exactly on the coast. The city was inland on the Sound. If you wanted the coast, you had to jump across to La Push on the Olympic Peninsula. Or drive down to Olympia and head west.

  “Strange place,” said Ora Mae. “Highway cuts the city in half. They got a Space Needle that looks better on a postcard and a market where they toss fish back and forth for the tourists. Seattle’s not so much a city as it’s a bag of neighbourhoods. Never gets too hot, and the only time the drizzle stops is when it rains.”

  Eureka, on California’s North Coast, had been like that. Overcast days with rain and wind, occasional bursts of sunlight, followed by more grey. Thumps remembered the long months of coastal weather when the days were dark and your shoes never dried. Either you liked the dreary and the damp—or you moved.

  “Rain can get to you.”

  “Wasn’t the rain,” said Ora Mae. “Place was claustrophobic. Couldn’t see the sky. Couldn’t see the horizon.”

  Ora Mae had worked for Sterling Noseworthy and Wild Rose Realty, had been the lead agent at Buffalo Mountain when the complex first opened.

  Thumps sipped at his coffee. “So you came home.”

  “I guess,” said Ora Mae. “I guess that’s what I did.”

  Thumps considered cleaning the stove. With any luck, Ora Mae would get bored watching him, give up, and leave, and he would be able to avoid the conversation he could feel looming in front of him. If Ora Mae wanted to talk to Beth, she should talk to Beth. If Beth wanted to talk to Ora Mae, she should talk to Ora Mae. The two women might need someone to mediate, but Thumps had no intention of applying for the position.

  “You know that Beth and I own the Land Titles building.” Ora Mae tapped her spoon on the rim of the cup. It made a hard, brittle sound. “We own it together.”

  Okay, so it was worse than he thought. Thumps had assumed that Ora Mae had come back to Chinook so that she and Beth could give their relationship another try.

  But that wasn’t it.

  “Ever since Sterling moved to Denver and bought some big, old, ugly house up in the mountains, he’s been hurting for money.” Ora Mae rubbed the back of her neck. “Wild Rose is dead weight. He’s willing to sell it cheap.”

  Beth hadn’t mentioned anything about selling the Land Titles building, and Thumps was guessing that she wouldn’t be all that keen on the idea.

  “I don’t want to force the issue. We were friends.” Ora Mae’s face softened. “We were lovers.”

  So that was it. Ora Mae wanted Thumps to talk to Beth about selling, wanted Thumps to explain to her that Ora M
ae needed the money in order to buy Wild Rose Realty, wanted Thumps to be the messenger who got shot.

  Ora Mae looked around the kitchen. “You paint the place?”

  “No.”

  “You should,” she said. “Maybe a warm tone, so it doesn’t feel so sad.”

  Thumps tried steering the conversation out of harm’s way. “You said something about Cooley coming by.”

  “That’s right,” said Ora Mae. “He said you’re to go to the airport tonight to pick up Claire when she flies in from Great Falls. According to Cooley, you’re to take flowers and a box of candy.”

  “Cooley said all that?”

  “Actually, it was Roxanne Heavy Runner. Cooley wanted to make it clear that he had no hand in any of this. Boy actually looked frightened.”

  “Roxanne will do that to you.”

  “Then he got hungry and ate the pie.” Ora Mae pushed away from the table and walked to the door. “Cooley said that you’re supposed to buy red roses and that expensive dark chocolate in the gold foil and not the milk chocolate junk you get at the mall.”

  Thumps followed her out to the car. “You discuss the Land Titles building with Beth?”

  “Not yet,” she said.

  “Don’t think she wants to sell.”

  “Probably not.” Ora Mae tried to smile. “But Sterling isn’t going to wait forever.”

  “Not much I can do.” Thumps considered Ora Mae’s car for a moment. “Did you come by the other night?”

  Ora Mae nodded. “I did but you weren’t here. I suppose Trixie told you that.”

  “Dixie’s a little security conscious.”

  “Uh-huh. Man gives me the creeps. Looked like a scarecrow escaped from a cornfield, him standing on his porch and staring at me like that. When he started lurking over, I took off.”

  “I’ll tell him you’re okay.”

  “You could mention it. Beth respects you.” Ora Mae looked back to the porch. “But whatever you do, try to stay upwind from that dog.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Left to his own devices, Thumps could have come up with any number of ideas as to how he might spend his evening. None of them involved flowers and candy. He didn’t mind picking Claire up at the airport, would have welcomed the chance to spend time with her again. He just didn’t like the idea of being ordered to do it. Roxanne wasn’t his mother. His mother had loved him.