Ultraviolet

by Nancy Bush

  We locked eyes. I could tell she registered that she knew me from somewhere, but she was having a hard time placing it. I said, “Hello, Megan. I’m Jane Kelly. You brought me the pug this summer. Your aunt Eugenie’s?”

  “Oh, Binky!” Her eyes widened. “Is everything all right with the dog? Can’t you keep her any longer?”

  “Oh no, she’s fine. I’m…well, I’ve grown attached to her. Honestly, I’d have a hard time giving her back now.”

  “Oh, good. I’m just struggling with my apartment, y’know? Good roommates are like hen’s teeth.” She smiled. “One of Aunt Eugenie’s favorite sayings.”

  “Good old Aunt Eugenie.”

  “I’ve got a guy living with me now who tried to tell me he doesn’t spank the monkey. This after he ate a bag of Cheetos. Your Honor, I saw evidence to the contrary.”

  In my mind’s eye, I witnessed what she’d seen in all its orange glory.

  “I don’t care what he does. Masturbation’s supposed to be healthy. It’s the lying I can’t stand. You know what I mean?”

  I nodded. I hate being lied to. Lying to others, however, is what I live for. An unfair dichotomy that rarely bothers me.

  “Gotta get him out and someone else in.” She eyed me some more. “You looking to move? It’s a nice place. Not far off Hawthorne.”

  Her words had the power to almost pierce me. It was like the whole world knew I was being kicked out. “I’m pretty happy where I am.”

  “I don’t doubt it,” she said a bit ruefully. “That’s a nice cottage. I was just hoping.”

  Aren’t we all?

  “So, what brings you down to the Crock?”

  “I’m meeting Sean Hatchmere here.”

  “Who?”

  I half twisted in my chair. “I think he’s with a band…maybe?”

  “Oh. Yeah, the musicians. They’re all stoned or worse. That’s a stereotype and a fact. I’ve smoked some weed, but that other stuff’ll kill ya.”

  Megan, I remembered, smoked Players as well. Sometimes I like the scent of a freshly lit cigarette, but the environs of the Crock were saturated with that stale, musty scent of old cigarettes, dust and, drifting from the kitchen, overused grease. I imagined boiling oil somewhere beyond that turned out jalapeño poppers, clam strips, chicken fingers and assorted deep-fried appetizers at an alarming rate.

  “Didn’t you say you used to tend bar?” she asked.

  “In Southern California. A place called Sting Ray’s.”

  “If you ever want to moonlight, we’re always looking for someone to fill in.”

  “I’ll keep it in mind,” I said as Megan went back to fill another barmaid’s order.

  I tried to put myself in the picture as an employee of the Crock. I liked the dress code. Pants, as opposed to shorts or short skirts. Easier to work in. But the hours, and the lingering smells, and the drunks…

  Not that process serving, one of the offshoots of my business, doesn’t have its perils and pitfalls. While Violet’s case was on stall, I’d delivered a few notices with varying risks to my person. Three days ago I’d damn near gotten run down by a guy I’d served with divorce papers. The asshole got in his car while I was heading toward mine, suddenly shifted in reverse and stamped on the accelerator, roaring backward straight for me. I’m always a little more on my toes when I deliver people bad news, so I nimbly leapt out of his Porsche’s path. He reversed right into the street and broadsided a passing sedan, luckily catching it at the back wheel well, so no one was seriously hurt. Everyone started screaming and shrieking and a man the size of Greenland unfolded himself from the sedan’s driver’s seat and glared down at the prick in the Porsche. I gave Greenland my phone number, told him I’d seen the whole thing, then climbed into my Volvo and calmly drove around them. I’d really wanted to flip the Porsche driver off. He’d tried to kill me, after all. But it looked to me like justice would be served, so I just rolled down my window and whistled the theme from Rocky at him as I cruised past.

  Maturity may not be my long suit. Doesn’t mean it didn’t feel good.

  I finished my drink but held on to my silver glass as I strolled away from the bar and toward the back of the room where scruffy men in dark T-shirts and wrinkled pants checked the sound and lights. I watched a guy unroll a wad of thick electrical cable, his movements so deliberate I wondered if he was in a zone. A drug zone, possibly, although I’ve known other people who moved at the speed of sloth.

  There was a grouping of two-person café tables in front of the stage and I snagged a chair. The lighting was dim, which was probably a blessing as I tend to get anxious when I see the accumulation of dirt and crud that seems to go hand in hand with small nightclubs. I can live with a certain amount of dog hair clinging to my clothes. But true dirt? Inside, not outside? Uh-uh.

  My eyes narrowed on the dusty footprints layered upon each other atop the dark stage. Get a broom, somebody.

  “Sean, get up the catwalk and check that spot.”

  The speaker was an older guy with a frizzy, gray ponytail. He was pointing to a track light attached to a crossbeam above the far end of the stage. Sean was the guy slowly wrapping up the cable.

  Could there be two Seans? I wondered hopefully. This one was slight with shaggy hair to his shoulders and a dopey expression on his thin face. Either he was under sedation or there was one very long neuron between sensory input and brain processing. He was, however, about the right age. Twenty-five, maybe?

  Sean slowly balanced a tall ladder against the aforementioned catwalk. I held my breath as he climbed upward, his movements at a steady pace of .002 miles per hour. He trudged across the walk to the light, which he fiddled with and fiddled with while Frizzy Ponytail barked orders. Eventually they were both satisfied and Sean crept back down the rungs and returned to coiling cable. He’d sounded a lot more energetic on the phone.

  I checked my watch. Eleven-thirty. Maybe I could get this interview over early and skedaddle before the witching hour. The thought of my bed was an invitation I wanted to accept sooner rather than later.

  “Sean Hatchmere?” I asked, as he walked across the stage in front of me, his sneakers and pant legs passing by at eye level.

  He stopped, shading his eyes against the lights to look down at me. “Yeah?”

  “Jane Kelly.”

  It took a moment. “Oh. Yeah. Ya wanna come on back?” He veered toward the rear of the stage and after a brief second of hesitation, I hauled myself onto the dusty apron and followed, brushing off my palms.

  Behind the enormous speakers and false walls was a rabbit warren of alleyways fashioned from more enormous false walls and black set boxes. I could see the bright green of an EXIT sign through a slit between black curtains. Sean stopped ahead of me and motioned me into a room with a haphazard selection of folding chairs. The greenroom, apparently, where the performers waited before going onstage.

  Sean took a folding chair and I pulled up one beside him. The light was dim enough that I couldn’t tell if his eyes were unfocused or not. “You wanted to talk about Dad,” he said. His voice was a near monotone, but I thought that might be just his natural way of speaking rather than a passive-aggressive kind of compliance, the kind I might have used in the principal’s office once upon a time.

  “Violet didn’t kill your father, either purposely or by accident,” I said, forcing myself to sound positive. “She wants to find who did, and I’m trying to make that happen. I’m just gathering information. You’re the first person interested in talking to me.”

  “You’re a private eye?”

  “Something like that.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It’s a work in progress.” I explained about the steps it took to be licensed, and Sean listened with apparent interest.

  “That’s cool.” He bobbed his head. “You can’t, like, bust some-one for something, though, huh? Like drugs, or…stuff…”

  “I’m not the police.”

  “I dunno what I
can tell ya. Dad was a control freak. Really wanted me to be a doctor, like he was. But y’know how that turned out.” He peered at me through hanks of hair.

  “He got his medical license revoked,” I said.

  “He was a lot more fun before that.” His tone was wistful. “All of a sudden he’s, like, climbing down my throat, turning my room upside down, sniffing around like a drug dog, y’know? Found a little stash of weed and thinks I’m a crackhead. Sends me to this rehab place with, like, these old people. Everybody’s got a prescription drug problem. I mean, really. Like housewives and businessmen and lawyers and shit. They are really messed up. If these people had had a little weed, y’know? They’d be a lot better off.”

  “Did you tell your father that?”

  “You bet. I told him lots of stuff. All that hypocritical shit. I kinda laughed at him, if you want the truth,” Sean said sheepishly. “He just, like, blew a blood vessel. Really, really out of control.”

  I decided Sean might be stoned. His emotions seemed detached from his narrative. “So, were you and your dad having a problem when he died?”

  “We were always having a problem. I was his problem. Well, and Gigi, too. I always kinda thought he wanted other kids, y’know? Smarter kids. Better athletes. More motivated.” He shrugged. “Some parents are just like that. My friend Dillon? His dad’s a total fuck wad. Told Dillon that if he didn’t get a job, he wasn’t invited to Thanksgiving. That’s cold, man.”

  “How old is Dillon?”

  “Twenty-four.”

  Sometimes I worry about the state of America’s youth, but then I remember what I was like at his age, which although different—I wasn’t a drug user—was kind of the same. I hate to use the word slacker. It’s just got too many bad connotations. I prefer motivation-challenged. I didn’t know what the hell to do with my life, and I spent my time stumbling through some college courses that still have the power to cause me moments of intense puzzlement. I remember one class titled Strategic Achievement in Common Socioeconomic and Cultural Workplace Situations in Conjunction with, or without, Today’s Technological Advances. I dropped out after a week of obscure lectures. The only thing I remember is great bandying about of the term utopic model. My strategic achievement was getting the hell out.

  “So, you’re working for Violet, huh?” He sounded more curious than appalled. “Wow. I hear she inherited a ton a’ money. Maybe that’s what killed Dad.” He barked out a laugh. “He hated not being in control.”

  “He controlled with money?”

  “Oh, shit yeah. Totally. I don’t mean to, like, talk bad about him. I’m sorry he’s gone. He was…my dad.” Sean stopped short. It took him a couple of tries to get started again. Clearing his throat, he finally said, “But he really got upset when we didn’t follow the plan. ‘The blueprint,’ he called it. Y’know?”

  “The blueprint.” I was getting a bigger picture of Roland Hatchmere beyond Violet’s description of him as a good father and an excellent plastic surgeon. “Sean, have you thought about who might have killed him?”

  “Besides Violet…?” He looked away, staring into space for long moments. “Those robbers, maybe?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Nobody hated him, if that’s where you’re going. He didn’t make enemies. No botched surgeries, when he was practicing. And he didn’t screw anybody over in his business dealings. I mean, I don’t think he did. Y’know Gigi and I had our problems. Like all kids, right? But everybody else thought he was great. Just ask ’em.”

  “Can you give me some names?”

  “Like of his friends? Sure.”

  Quickly I pulled a small tablet and pen from my purse. Sean scribbled down a list of people. “Is there anyone else? Other relatives? Businesspeople?” I tried to jog his memory.

  “Oh yeah.” He added a few more scratch marks to the list.

  When he handed it back I felt jubilant. With Sean’s tacit endorsement, these people might actually talk to me. “Thanks.”

  “Who do you think did it?” he asked.

  “I’d have to get a lot more background before I could venture a guess.”

  “You don’t think Violet did it.”

  I shook my head.

  He grinned. “You don’t like her, do ya? What happened? She screw you over, too?”

  “Did she screw you over?”

  “Oh, sure. Tried to get Dad to change his will, leave it all to her. He balked and they fought, and he lost his license and she was gone. But then she was back. You should talk to Melinda.” He gestured at the list. “Dad’s wife. You know she had to be really crazy, thinking about Violet returning to Portland, probably worming her way back in. Violet’s like that. She just doesn’t give up.”

  “Mm.”

  “You should talk to my mom, too,” he added. “I put her name on the list.”

  I glanced down, pretending I didn’t know whom he meant, though I’d practically memorized the names of the main players. “Renee?”

  “Yeah. She doesn’t live around here. She came up for the wedding, but, well, you know how that turned out.”

  Actually, I didn’t. Violet had mentioned a minor brouhaha at the rehearsal dinner between Roland and his first wife, but she hadn’t been there and I hadn’t been able to gather any more information.

  “What happened with Renee?”

  But Sean, having realized I was fishing, decided to shut down. He shrugged and said, “She didn’t like Violet, either, I guess.”

  I thought of my timeline and said, “What time did she get to the wedding? Was she with Gigi at Castellina, getting ready?”

  “I don’t know…” He glanced over his shoulder. “You know, we’re gonna be playing some good stuff. You wanna get ready?”

  “I’ll stay for some of it,” I promised. He was clearly trying to get me off track and I wasn’t ready to give up.

  “No, I mean. Ya wanna get ready?” He inclined his head toward the rear of the building.

  I looked in that direction. “You mean, get high?”

  “Hey, alcohol’s way worse than weed,” he said, apparently hearing some condemnation in my tone I hadn’t meant to voice.

  “I’ve got my poison, thanks.” I hoisted my empty glass.

  “Well, okay…I guess we’re done, then.” He made a face and headed toward the back.

  I hesitated a moment, then returned to my seat. Apart from some leftover questions concerning Renee Hatchmere, I felt I’d gotten all I could from Sean. I managed to stay through the first set before heading for the door. Either I’m growing old or my tolerance is shrinking, but I couldn’t handle the pounding beat and roaring, amplified electric guitar. Everything inside my head was throbbing with the music. I slipped out into the icy night air and drew a deep breath. Outside, the din was muffled and almost okay.

  I walked quickly to my Volvo, climbed inside, switched on the key and shivered until I was almost home. Hurriedly, I ripped off my clothes and threw a T-shirt over my head. When Binkster gave me a blinking, hopeful look, staggering to her feet, I threw back the covers in an invitation and we both settled into bed with a sigh.

  I fell asleep with doggy toenails planted against my back.

  In the night I heard a peculiar ringing sound I didn’t associate with any noise I knew. I lifted my head reluctantly and saw it was after 3:00 a.m. Vaguely I discerned that the noise, now silenced, had come from my cell phone, which was lying on my nightstand, being charged. I grappled for it and knocked an empty plastic glass onto the floor. “Shit,” I muttered as Binky snorted loudly but refused to lift her head.

  I punched a button to light up the dial and saw that I had a text message. Aha! That was the undefinable ring. I pressed the button with the little envelope on it, and a message popped up:

  party at Do Not Enter broke up at one. Since then, lots of crying at Rebel Yell. Something’s definitely wrong. Need you to investigate.

  DAD

  I set the phone down and drifted back to sleep. Dwayne’s i
nitials are DAD for Dwayne Austin Durbin. Now he wanted me to investigate what was happening across the bay?

  “He’s around the bend, Binks. Completely around the bend,” I mumbled.

  She answered with an inhaled doggy snort that I swear made the bed thrum as if it were equipped with Magic Fingers.

  CHAPTER THREE

  The next morning I made my usual run to the Coffee Nook and poured myself a cup of basic black coffee while Julie, the shop’s proprietress, and Jenny, Julie’s number-one employee, served up a rush of customers. One of the regulars I know only as Chuck had been to a charity auction and had bid on, and won, a ride-along with the Lake Chinook cops. I was slightly amazed anyone would be interested. I pictured the cops racing out, sirens screaming, to rescue a cat from a tree. Of course with the current sensibilities of Lake Chinook, it would probably be rescuing a tree from a cat. Either way I was glad it was Chuck who’d parted with his hard-earned money for this treat rather than myself.

  “The cop’s name is Josh Newell,” Chuck said, reading from his “certificate,” a page with a glued on gold seal that said he was a WINNER!!! “Ever heard of him?”

  Jenny shook her head, but I said, somewhat surprised myself, “I have.” Everyone turned to look at me. “I gave his sister Cheryl a ride from the airport. She told me Josh was with the LCPD.”

  “I thought you avoided the police,” said Julie.

  “I’ve never met the guy. Just his sister.” I’d tucked the information away for future use, but hadn’t expected it to pop into my world so soon.

  “Wanna go with me?” Chuck invited eagerly. “It’s for two.” He waved the certificate in my direction.

  No…thank…you…please…God…

  “I don’t think I could fit it into my schedule,” I demurred.

  “Hey, it’s not for any specific time. Any time next week work?” Chuck looked at me hopefully. He’s around sixty with a barrel torso and close-cropped Homer Simpson hair.

  “Not really.”

  “Thursday?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, right. Weekends’d be better. Friday. I’ll take you to dinner, and then we’ll ride around with Josh.”