by Craig Smith
Detective Jacobs stepped on my line. ‘Where exactly were you supposed to meet her?’
I turned toward Dalton as I gave my answer. ‘The Denny’s on Washington Avenue,’ I said. Jacobs had succeeded in upsetting me without doing very much besides staring at me with his arms folded across his skinny chest.
‘What evening was this?’ Jacobs asked.
‘Tuesday,’ I answered, ‘the day of Walt and Barbara Beery’s funeral.’ I wondered what had moved me to tell them about a funeral I hadn’t even attended.
Kip Dalton pulled a tiny notepad from his shirt pocket. Using a cheap ink pen, he wrote down the information. Jacobs asked about times. Molly said Johnna had called at about ten-fifteen. ‘I remember because I was expecting a phone call, and I answered.‘
Molly glanced at me. I took it from there.
‘She sounded upset,’ I told them.
From beyond our intimate triangle Detective Jacobs intruded again, ‘Why would she be upset?’
‘I don’t know. She said she wanted to talk to me about a mutual acquaintance, one of the teaching assistants. Buddy Elder. He wasn’t the friend who told you she wanted to talk to me, was he?’
Kip Dalton answered that in fact he wasn’t. Someone else. He didn’t offer any names. I knew how rumours could float in an environment like that. Pass a story to a couple of sources and it would come back to you as fact within the hour. Buddy Elder was the source of this information no matter where they had picked it up. I didn’t think it was a good idea to press my cause too aggressively. Let them find Buddy on their own, I thought, and they’ll believe he’s involved in this.
‘She didn’t speak to you again?’ Dalton asked.
‘No.’
‘What time did you get home?’ Dalton asked.
‘Around three-thirty.’
They pushed around the edges as if they were not really very interested. How well did I know Johnna?
Was she the kind of young woman who might decide to disappear for a few days? Prone to depression?
Flighty? What did I know about her friends?
Boyfriends? I did not go into speculations. I told them the truth. She had impressed me as an extremely dedicated, level-headed student. She had dropped by my office a couple of times, presented one story in my class. ‘When I first met her,’ I said, ‘she seemed a bit prudish, but the first short story she wrote was hilarious. It was called “Sexual Positions,” a total knock-down-drag-out comedy.’ Kip Dalton wanted to know if I thought she was promiscuous. I told him I thought she was talented. I got a look from Molly at this, but I didn’t care.
As we walked both detectives back toward their Jeep Detective Dalton gave Molly and me a worldly smile: ‘I’m inclined to think a young woman that age probably met the love of her life and just took off without telling anyone.’ He shrugged indifferently.
‘She’ll probably get around to calling her friends in a day or two and wonder what all the fuss is about.’
‘Not Johnna Masterson,’ I said. Kip Dalton looked at me questioningly. He wanted to hear my theory.
‘She was committed to her work,’ I said. ‘Taking off without saying anything would cost her too much: her teaching assistantship, her future prospects for a teaching position, and a semester of coursework with the grade of F. That kind of stuff happens with undergrads who haven’t invested their own money in their education, but not with a graduate student, certainly not someone like Johnna Masterson. Even if she found the love of her life, they could wait a couple of weeks until the end of the semester.’
‘That’s pretty much what everyone told us,’ Dalton said, apparently still not convinced.
The two men thanked us again for our help and climbed into their Jeep. After Dalton started the car, they sat for several seconds. Finally, Jacobs rolled down the passenger window. ‘You care if I ask you something, professor?’
He spoke softly and I walked toward him, so I could hear him better. No, I didn’t care.
‘Just now you were talking about Miss Masterson in the past tense. I was wondering, why you did that?’
I said I wasn’t aware that I had. I smiled like the killer. I felt a twitch in my neck kick in. Detective Jacobs assured me I had. ‘I’ve been on leave the past few weeks,’ I said finally. ‘Johnna was in my class, but since I’m not teaching it now, I guess I was thinking back. She was committed.’
Jacobs smiled at me sceptically the way people do when they’re standing in the front of a lying used car salesman. ‘You think she still is? Committed, I mean?’
‘Hard to say,’ I offered. ‘People change, don’t they?’
I heard myself talking without being able to stop. I was desperate for them to leave, and they just sat there listening while I told them Johnna could have had a secret life for all I knew. Call girl, drug addict, any damn thing!
Molly walked up. ‘I think you’ve asked all the questions you need to.’
Jacobs, who apparently thought he was about to get a confession, was not really happy about Molly stepping into it, but he hunched his shoulders and grinned.
‘Now I’ll kindly ask you to get off our property,’
Molly told him, ‘and next time call us before you come driving out here.’
Detective Dalton leaned down so Molly could see his guileless eyes. ‘We’re not sure we need to see you again, either of you, Ms Albo, but we’ll make sure to call ahead if we do. Thanks again for the coffee.’
Molly stood close to me as we watched them swing around the circle and drive down the hill.
Molly whispered to me as if they might actually hear her. ‘They think you killed that girl, David.’
I couldn’t answer her. Truth is I could barely breathe.
‘DID YOU SEE JOHNNA Masterson the other night?’
Molly asked when we were inside the house again.
‘I told you what happened.’
‘Yes, but we both know you have issues with the truth.’
I smiled as if Molly had missed the whole point, which I guess she had. ‘Can’t you see what’s happening?’
‘I can see you looked like hell when that Detective Jacobs started pushing you around.’
‘I didn’t care for his attitude.’
‘Do you want me to stay?’
‘Stay?’
‘Cancel my flight. Until this gets resolved, I mean.’
‘You do whatever you want, Molly. I’m not in trouble with these people.’
‘David, those two aren’t finished with you. If I leave now they’re going to think it’s because I know something.’
‘There’s nothing to know, nothing connecting me to that woman.’
‘You went to see her.’
I shrugged indifferently. ‘Other than that.’
‘She charged you with sexual harassment.’
‘She was misinformed about statements I had made.
It wasn’t her fault.’
‘You think the cops will buy that?’
I thought about another lie, but stopped myself. ‘No.
Not after what happened at the funeral home.’
Molly stared me without speaking.
‘It would mean a lot if you stayed,’ I said finally.
‘I’ll make some calls.’
LUCY CAME HOME FROM school while I was in the barn. We talked for a while, and then she went into the house. She and Molly were upstairs in Lucy’s bedroom when I found them.
‘We’re going out to dinner,’ Molly said.
‘Great,’ I said.
‘Just the two of us.’
I went upstairs to my third floor monk’s cell to change clothes and watched from my window until they appeared. They took Lucy’s Toyota. Later, I rummaged around in the pantry for something to eat.
There was plenty of food. The trouble was I hadn’t gotten a supply of beer, and I wanted something to drink. Food was optional, drink the staff of life.
The truck drove itself to my old haunts. I had the meatloaf sp
ecial with a couple of beers, followed by three shots of whiskey at the next stop. Three bars, three more drinks. Everyone asked where I had been.
I had a different answer at each bar. I said I’d had a consulting gig in Poland. That was at the first bar. At the second I said I’d been born again for a while, off booze entirely. At the next I said I had been in the Peace Corps in South America. At another, I said I had gone to Texas for a couple of years to work on a ranch busting broncos. The only story they called me on was the born again nonsense. They could believe the religion, nothing wrong with that, and I certainly needed it, but they knew I wasn’t about to give up drinking!
A co-ed was curious about what had happened to me at school. She had fabulous breasts, almost in Johnna Masterson’s league, and a bright-eyed innocence I found disconcerting so late into a good binge.
I told her I just needed some time off. She answered,
‘I heard you were fired.’
‘I’m taking some time off until they fire me,’ I said.
Having got what she wanted, and just a little accidental rub against my arm while she operated, she drifted off to join a younger drunk. I had persuaded myself she was interested in nailing a prof before the end of the semester and almost out of time. Of course, ex-profs don’t really count. I left feeling old and foolish, like my friend and mentor Walt Beery. In my truck I considered the temptation: those wide innocent eyes, those great, round breasts. I swore at my folly. I had been playing her along with the cool indifference of a mature man, imagining it was just for fun, knowing I could resist if she wanted something more than a little flirtation. But if it hadn’t been just the gossip she had wanted, I knew we would have ended up in the cab of my truck. Beth Ruby all over again.
I was faithful because I hadn’t been tempted. All I wanted at that moment was a good excuse. In fact I wanted more than an excuse. I wanted to kick up a little dust. Fortunately, I knew where to find plenty of dust.
I WALKED INTO THE GLASS Slipper around midnight. Buddy Elder was not there. Neither was Denise. The doorman didn’t remember my face, or he didn’t care. I watched several dancers, picked my favourite and bought a lap dance. She was the very opposite of my wife, compact hips, hardly any breasts at all, dark hair, a small red mouth. I guessed her to be nineteen or twenty. She was just plain enough that she had to work to make a living, just proud enough that she substituted athleticism for sexual wiles. I liked that. Sexual wiles feel like an act if they’re not done well. You can’t fake a body slam. She made hard, repeated contact against my torso. She pressed her flat chest against my face with bony enthusiasm. Her eyes were distant, unfocused, completely at odds with the vitality of her young body, as if to say, nothing personal here. It was just the thing I needed, and I bought a second dance. I thought she might spot a sucker and play me a bit more skilfully, at least until she emptied my pockets, but I got the same thing. Slap, slide, breast-bone to nose bone, staring off into the distance, wagging her buttocks over my crotch.
As she was slipping her skimpy top over her practically nonexistent breasts, I asked her if Denise Conway was still working here. The girl focused. ‘How do you know Denise?’
I could see I had made a mistake, but I couldn’t understand what it was. Old habits die hard. In a tight spot, I always conjured up a true statement. The ghost of Tubs. ‘She was a student of mine this fall,’ I said.
‘She said if I came out here and saw her dancing it would embarrass the hell out of her.’ I gave the dancer a nasty leer, ‘So I thought I’d try it. Only I get here and I don’t see her around.’
The girl relaxed. I had served up enough truth for her to buy it. Who knows, maybe she even thought I looked like a professor. Good diction, straight teeth, chalk dust under my fingernails, or maybe it was that I was a horny old goat. ‘Denise don’t dance under her real name is why I asked.’ She laughed. ‘I guess I should say she don’t dance at all no more. She got married.’
‘Married?’ I expect I blinked. I know my mouth hung open Wade-style.
‘Right before Thanksgiving. The guy she married used to come in here all the time, but now he don’t want anyone looking at her no more. You know how it goes.’
‘Buddy’s friend? Roy, Ray? Something like that?’ I asked.
‘Roger. And he used to be Buddy’s friend. Buddy and Denise broke up because of him. They had this big fight in here because of her. Everybody was like…how? Turns out Denise is like no dummy. Turns out, Roger is rich.’
‘Lucky Denise.’
‘Me? I’d rather have Buddy.’
I drove by Buddy’s house. He was home. I drove by the Beery residence. The place was dark, the newly-weds apparently already in bed. At the farm I found Molly’s rental and Lucy’s Toyota parked side by side in the shed.
I showered and went to my room, but I couldn’t sleep. Married, right before Thanksgiving. Walt had told me they were going out of town to meet friends of hers. An alibi? With five million-plus in play it was just was too neat for coincidence.
I lay awake working through the possibilities, but it always came down to Buddy Elder. I could imagine Roger falling under his spell, the three of them, Roger, Denise, and Buddy, working up a double homicide and making it look like domestic violence.
What still did not make sense was the disappearance of Johnna Masterson.
Chapter 23
I JOINED MOLLY FAIRLY LATE THE NEXT morning on the third floor. ‘Guess what I found out?’
Molly looked at me, waiting but not guessing. Denise Conway and Roger Beery got married last week.’ Molly didn’t seem especially interested. When I tried to explain my theory that Buddy and Denise and Roger had conspired to murder Walt and Barbara, she laughed at me.
‘Please, David.’
‘I’m serious! He and Roger staged a fight at The Slipper.’
She smiled. ‘Like you and Buddy staged one?’
I laughed and shook my head. ‘I’m just telling you.
Walt and Barbara were murdered. The three of them did it.’
‘I suppose they’re involved in Johnna Masterson’s disappearance as well?’
‘I expect an arrest any day now,’ I said.
‘Great. That means I can get back to Florida.’
‘You and Lucy have a good talk?’
‘Reasonably. I told her I needed to stick around for a while. I told her that you’re in trouble. You know what she told me? She said you didn’t sleep with Denise Conway. She said you’re not lying.’
I considered a snappy comeback, but something in Molly’s tone told me Lucy’s faith in me was not the point.
‘When we got home I showed her the diary.’ Denise Conway’s diary had become The Diary in our parlance. Molly met my stunned gaze with a degree of satisfaction I found cruel. ‘She asked me how I could stand it, staying here in the same house.’ The flesh around Molly’s mouth quivered, almost a smile. Her martyrdom was now fully appreciated by her daughter.
‘You didn’t have to do that, Molly.’ I said this without energy or bitterness. I was too tired to fight. A part of me had actually begun to accept the diary as fact.
I carried the guilt of it at any rate.
‘How many ways did you swear to her you were innocent, David?’
‘I told her the truth. I told her it was none of her business.’
‘You keep nothing from me, wasn’t that it?’
I was not angry. My mood was closer to that of a man who has been told he has only a few weeks to live. I had no blood flowing through me. I had no reason to hope. I had nothing at all besides a madman who was determined to ruin my life one misery at a time. Devastation piecemeal.
‘You’re the one who got Lucy into the middle of this, David. Don’t give me that look.’
I said it wasn’t a look. ‘I’m just afraid I’ve lost her too.’
Molly turned back to work without comment.
Whatever I had lost, I had lost by my own doing.
‘KIP DALTON,’ MOLLY SAID, h
olding the phone receiver toward me. We had been working for close to an hour installing a tongue-and-groove floor. I blinked as I stood up and stretched. Dalton meant more questions about Johnna Masterson. I calculated the possibility of convincing him that Buddy Elder was behind it and decided I needed to go slowly. My credibility was in question. The first thing I needed to do was to sell Detective Kip Dalton on David Albo, The Honest Man.
I took the phone from her nervously because I had not been The Honest Man since I had walked out of the wastelands for the last time. Dalton apologized for bothering me. I tried to sound cheerful. It was the voice suicides use once their minds are made up, the enthusiasm thin, imaginary. ‘Not at all! What can I do for you, Detective?’
Kip had a few questions. Could I come into the sheriff’s department around three o’clock? I told him I needed to check my day planner, then I laughed.
‘What do you know? Free all afternoon.’ Molly, who had been watching me intently through this exchange, whispered the word lawyer. I shook my head. Talking was my business! Dalton and Jacobs were just a couple of tire kickers I was going to turn into a sale!
The moment I was off the phone Molly told me to call Gail. I said I didn’t need her. Besides Gail didn’t understand what was going on. The best thing to do, I said, was to be upfront. ‘If I go in there with a lawyer they’re naturally going to assume I’ve got something to hide.’
‘Dalton isn’t buying a car, David. He’s looking for someone who wanted to hurt Johnna Masterson.’
‘Maybe I can help.’
I felt less confident when I walked into the brightly lit front offices of the sheriff’s department and asked for Detective Dalton. I did not like the place. Men and women came and went wearing county brown uniforms, sleek compact handguns, and all manner of accessories strapped to their belts. These were serious folks with powers I had not fully reckoned with from the comforts of my ivory tower. The people they escorted all had the same hangdog look. They were rough people too, but at the moment all the mean had been squeezed out: they were at the mercy of others, and they knew it.
