To his surprise, Todd intervened. He gave Leon a brief hug, went to the basket table, and took a big cylindrical tin and a shallow glass vessel from a drawer Rob hadn’t noticed. The tin held French cigarettes.
Rob had quit smoking when his daughter was born, and he didn’t miss the habit, but he took a cigarette when Todd passed them out. The vessel was an ashtray of the sort found in wealthy households in the 1950s. Jack lit his brother’s cigarette with an old Zippo lighter that was probably also a collector’s item. Then he passed the lighter around.
Rob managed not to cough when he lit up.
They smoked, Rob and Todd standing, the others sitting. Everyone was silent. The ashtray on Jack Redfern’s knee took on a ceremonial presence. Tobacco was a sacred plant to most Native American cultures. This ritual struck Rob as parody—as the room itself was a parody of a longhouse—but the effect was genuine.
Outside, the wind soughed. Rain spattered the plastic skylight. Smoke wreathed and hung in a blue cloud. Leon Redfern calmed and collected himself almost visibly. Maddie’s shoulders slumped. Jack smoked and patted his brother’s arm, rocking a little on the bench.
As for Rob, the short, filterless cigarette made him queasy and lightheaded, but the nicotine kicked in. He could feel his vision sharpening. His pulse accelerated.
Todd gave a cough and stubbed out his smoke. The others followed suit, Rob with relief. His mouth tasted sour.
Leon Redfern spoke to him directly. “I want you to find my son’s killer.”
“I’ll do my best. Will you tell me about Eddy?”
Leon closed his eyes, opened them, blinking. “He was smart, that kid. And he played good basketball. Made the varsity his sophomore year, shortest one on the team, but he could jump.” And he went on, halting to sob as his loss caught up with him. He persisted, dogged, as if he wanted Eddy’s life on record. He didn’t object when Rob turned on the tape machine.
Rob didn’t interrupt. He listened hard. He could tell that Todd was listening, too, and Madeline. Jack sat with one hand on his brother’s arm.
When Rob asked Leon the name of his son’s dentist, Leon told him, and broke down again.
Madeline said in a low voice, “Did you have to?”
Rob nodded.
There was a long pause. “I have a name for you.”
Their eyes locked. “The name of a looter?”
She nodded slowly. “William Meek. From Montana. Nickname Billy or Digger.” Her mouth twisted in a grimace. “He’s one of those skinheads, keeps dropping out of sight.”
“A white supremacist?”
“Aryan Nation,” Todd chimed in. “They were recruiting in the high school when I was there. The Aryans came from west-central Asia, didn’t they?”
“I believe so.”
“We used to say they should go back to the arya they came from.” He gave a slight smile. “Bad joke.”
“But not a bad idea.” Rob smiled, too. He turned back to Madeline. “I’m obliged to you, Chief Thomas. Did you report Meek to the Fish Commission for pothunting?”
“Yes. His name came up three different times with questionable stuff, mostly arrowheads. She, the investigator, said they checked him out, but they could never catch him with the goods on him. She’s been keeping an eye out for him.”
Rob said, “His name is in the system, then. If he took part in a skinhead demonstration there may be fingerprints. I’ll get onto it.”
Leon blew his nose on a blue spotted handkerchief. “Will I… Where have they got my boy?”
Rob explained as tactfully as he could about the autopsy and the morgue. “If the dentist’s records match, sir, you won’t have to make the trip to Vancouver.”
Leon looked shocked. “We want to see him, Lila and me. When she gets here, she’ll want to see Eddy.”
Rob looked at Todd, who swallowed hard and shook his head, no. “Okay,” Rob said, “let us know when you want to go and a deputy will escort you.”
There wasn’t much else to say. Leon seemed even more shocked that the body wouldn’t be released at once and retreated into silent misery. Rob showed Maddie a photo of the broken petro-glyph. When she identified it as part of The Dancers, she sounded almost indifferent.
As Madeline walked them to the outer door, Rob said, “We’ll have to talk to the young people.”
“They’re scattered all over the place.”
“The ones who are here,” Rob insisted. “Can you assemble them tomorrow evening? I want Todd and his partner to question them. You gave me one name. We need all the names, and we need their impressions of Meek and the other dealers, everything they can remember.”
Maddie was silent. She pulled the door open and stood for a moment looking out into the rainy darkness. The sun was setting far down the Gorge, turning the river to steel. The hills nearby loomed black. “Yes, okay. Todd and Jake. I know Jake. And I can give them the list of names we sent to the Fish Commission.”
Rob said, “Or to me. Now.”
He could see from the set of her jaw that he was pushing her, so he didn’t insist.
Rob drove the car back along the winding road to Klalo with Todd beside him taking notes on the laptop. Time for a crash course in techniques of interrogation.
“What if I goof it up tomorrow?” Todd wailed at one point.
Rob squirted detergent on the streaming windshield and peered at the wet road. “You won’t. You took a class at Clark. Besides, you know the kids. They’ll talk to you.”
“I’m related to most of them.” Todd didn’t sound as if the thought made him happy. “Look, sir, I know I should have told you or somebody what the chief was doing, except her investigation started way before I joined the department. Jeez, it started when I was in high school. I stopped taking it seriously years ago.”
Rob was silent. He hit a long puddle and the tires hydroplaned. He gripped the wheel and steered with extreme delicacy until the treads bit into the asphalt again.
By rights he ought to tear another strip off Todd’s hide, but he didn’t feel up to it.
“Chief Thomas doesn’t trust me.” He swerved around a dead possum. “She and I have clashed in the past, and we probably will in the future.” And next time you’d better have your loyalties sorted. He didn’t say that. He felt another spasm of anger at Mad-die for putting Todd in a vise.
When Todd didn’t say anything, Rob added, “You’ll have to watch yourself tomorrow. I’ll give you exactly what you can tell your cousins and their friends about the investigation—or the sheriff will. Not much, I’m afraid.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Rob said, “That business with the cigarettes was smart, Todd, and kind. I was glad you were there.” He glanced sideways but couldn’t read the kid’s expression.
Red and white lights like a demented Christmas tree signaled a slow truck ahead. Rob eased off on the accelerator and put his mind to driving the narrow highway.
TOWSER interrupted Meg’s trip to the garbage can.
There was no garbage disposal in the sink, so she had two days’ worth of peelings, coffee grounds, and assorted grunge to get rid of. She pulled on a rain jacket, flipped the hood up, and made a dash through the dark for the big plastic can. She had set it just outside the crime scene tape at the front edge of the garage. Apparently Towser had been lurking. He leapt on her with a joyous woof.
Meg shrieked and dropped her sack. “No, no. Down, boy. Good dog, down!”
He snuffled at the plastic bag. Fortunately she had not been eating T-bone steak.
She squatted. “Drop it, you pestilential beast.”
Towser tugged at one end of the bag and woofed. A good game. Light from a passing car shone on his gleaming brown hide and big brown eyes. He was grinning at her.
“Towser, sit!”
He sat, grinning, bag hanging from his muzzle. Vegetable peelings and coffee grounds cascaded onto her sneakers. She yanked and he yanked back. She heard a car door slam in the distance.
/> “Cut it out, damn it. Down!” She was half gasping, half laughing. “Come on, Towser. Good boy. Give me the sack, you moron. No, down.”
Miraculously, he dropped the bag and nosed around her. As she bent to scoop up the garbage, he gave an exuberant bounce, landed on her back, and knocked her flat.
Face down in wet garbage, Meg fought for air. Words of antique origin wheezed out in the sheeting rain. Towser was licking her ear.
“Towser, sit!”
Meg struggled to her feet and turned.
Rob Neill, one hand clamped on the dog’s collar, was scowling at her. Rain dripped from his hair and the end of his nose. “You okay?”
Wordless, she nodded.
“I’ll take him home.”
She found her tongue. “I’m coming with you.”
The frown eased. “As you are?”
She looked down at the front of her jacket. Had she really used that much tomato sauce? “As I am,” she said grimly. “This has to stop.”
He shrugged. “Your choice. Heel, boy.” The dog trotted along beside him, and so did Meg. She was wet through and smelled like garbage.
The Brandstetter house was a one-story brick affair built in the 1950s, probably, Meg reflected, by Emil Strohmeyer. Someone had added an ill-considered front deck. Though lights were on, no one answered Rob’s brisk knock and the SUV was gone from the driveway. Towser sat on the deck and looked around. Meg stood behind him, feeling foolish.
“She’s in there,” Rob muttered and banged on the door with his fist. “Come on, Tammy, open up.”
Towser gave an interrogatory woof and licked his hand. Rob scratched between his ears.
“Maybe she’s in the bathroom,” Meg ventured. She hoped nobody else in the neighborhood was watching.
Rob stared at the door. After a long pause, he hammered again, and this time Meg heard noises inside. The bolt slid with a thunk, and the door opened a crack.
“What do you want?” It was half moan, half wail.
Rob said, “Are you okay, Tammy? C’mon, it’s just me.”
The door inched open. A woman stood there, hair tumbled, bathrobe gaping over a stained flannel nightgown, though it was not yet nine o’clock. She was holding an ice bag to her face.
“What happened?”
She gave a half sob. “I bumped into a door, okay?”
“If he hit you…”
“Nobody hit me. Go away.” The door started to close.
Rob said, “You’ll have to take the dog. He knocked Ms. McLean down just now. Let him into the backyard.”
“I can’t. Hal said he’d have Towser put down if he pooped out there again. I can’t.”
“Listen to me, Tammy. You need help, you need somebody to stay with you. Call your son.”
“He’s in Portland. He doesn’t have a car.” She was crying. Her nose ran and she wiped it on her sleeve. “I can’t put Towser in the yard.”
“Let me call Linda Ramos.”
“No, no cops! I bumped into a fucking door. Let me have the fucking dog. He can poop in the house.”
After a moment, Rob stepped aside and Towser leapt through the opening.
“I know you mean well, Rob.” Tammy Brandstetter sniffed hard. “Just go away, okay? I’m all right.” And she slammed the door.
Rob was swearing softly.
Meg said, “She needs help.”
“Yeah, she does, but she won’t ask for it, and her husband is a goddamn county commissioner.” He sounded too tired to be angry. He climbed down the steps and started back. Meg followed.
On impulse, she said, “Eat dinner with me.”
“What?”
“I know I’m not an appetizing object at the moment. Give me twenty minutes to clean up. I keep cooking for two, I’m bored with my own company, and I have a nice shepherd’s pie in the oven.”
“Ah, thanks just the same but—”
“Come on,” she wheedled. “I promise not to ask you a single embarrassing question about the investigation.”
He stopped and looked at her.
“Well, you’re not supposed to talk about it, are you?”
A reluctant smile tugged at his mouth. “You should see yourself.”
“I was named for Saint Margaret, the queen of Scotland,” she said with dignity. “Think about that.”
He laughed and walked on. “And I was named for my grandfather who was named for Robert the Bruce.”
“Try, try again,” she murmured, trotting along.
“Real shepherd’s pie?”
“With mashed potatoes.”
They ate in the kitchen.
SIX o’clock Saturday morning, when the alarm went off, Rob did not at first recognize what the sound was, the demoralizing consequence of a good dinner, amusing conversation, and a couple of glasses of a nice merlot. She’d kept her word: no questions. He and Meg—impossible to think of her as the librarian or even Ms. McLean—had mostly swapped daughter tales. When she told him Annie Baldwin’s comment on California girls, he’d been startled into unrestrained laughter. Willow did look waxed because, by God, she was. He liked Meg McLean quite a lot by the time he walked home.
I am forty-four years old, he reflected. Gina moved to Portland almost a year ago, and I missed her for maybe two weeks. Crusty bachelorhood suits me. Why am I thinking with my prick at this stage of the game? He grinned at the ceiling. On the other hand …
On the other hand, Ms. McLean was a witness, not very material but a witness nonetheless, in a case under investigation. With an almost tangible jolt, the previous day’s mood of gloom and urgency slammed back in place. The snooze alarm started its annoying bleeps, so he smacked it hard and got up. By the time he had showered and dressed, his mind was more or less on the task at hand.
He meant to roust the Brandstetters out of bed with no preliminary courtesies. He thought about Tammy’s bruised face and obvious terror. There had been no sign of Hal’s SUV when he and Meg had taken Towser to the house last evening, so the commissioner must have gone off before they got there, after the quarrel with Tammy, if there had been a quarrel. What had triggered the fight? Towser? Somehow Rob doubted that, though living with the beast had to be a strain on any marriage.
Hal had been elected to the county board two years before, so Rob had had time to digest the man’s peculiar political ideas, but his personality was still a puzzle. Brandstetter seemed to thrive on hostility. Bashing his wife, if he had, had probably cheered him up, but why had he needed cheering up?
Speculation, Rob reflected, strapping on the shoulder holster and yanking his windbreaker over the slight bulge of his handgun. It seemed to him that speculation was all he had done since Eddy Redfern’s body had been discovered. He needed facts, not scenarios.
He also needed coffee.
Before heading downstairs he ducked into his office and read his e-mail. It was mostly spam, pushing Kevlar body armor or brilliant high-tech investment opportunities. Nothing so far on the skinhead, William Meek, but it was Saturday morning. He logged off, replaced the battery and tape in his recorder, and slipped it and his recharged cell phone into his jacket pockets. He hesitated a moment, then called Dispatch.
Jane Schmidt was not yet on duty, so he talked briefly to Teresa Morales, the night dispatcher, and longer to Earl Minetti, who was starting the day early.
Earl was in a cranky mood. He grunted when Rob explained his own daybreak mission to interrogate the Brandstetters. Earl had found nothing noteworthy on the walls of Meg’s garage the day before and that rankled. He meant to sift every inch of the garage floor and was prepared to be boring about it. More power to you, Rob thought, signing off.
He considered calling Dave Meuler, too, but Dave was off-duty, having put in eight days in a row and an all-nighter without extra compensation. The city budget was in dire straits. Dave’s report on his interviews in the neighborhood would be waiting at the office. As would the results of Linda Ramos’s real estate inquiries.
Outside
, it was still night, though the rain had let up. The Brandstetter house lay in darkness. So did Meg’s. Rob wondered which shaded window was her bedroom.
Cut it out, he told himself, and picked up his pace. His joints were rusty from all the sitting he’d been doing. He crossed the street and walked on the uneven concrete of a sidewalk that had been poured in 1923. Quiet on that side, too, though Mrs. Iver-son’s kitchen light shone. He stumbled on a crack and caught himself. Clumsy. Time for a session with Takeo Johnson, but his martial arts partner was off at a conference. Back Monday. Maybe a swim? Could go for a run. It wasn’t raining.
“Hi, Rob, what’ll it be this morning?” Marge Barnes beamed at him from the brightly lit take-out window of the espresso stand.
“How you doing? How’s Benny?” He listened to Marge’s worries about her twenty-year-old slacker son while he scanned the menu. Then he ordered what he usually ordered, a double-strength espresso, hold the whipped cream. He didn’t like the stuff sprayed from a can. It tasted like shaving cream.
“Slow this morning,” he murmured when the first swallow of caffeine brought him into focus.
“It usually is on Saturdays.” Marge settled onto her tall stool for a good yack. “I like it quiet. I just wish old Brandstetter would stop staring at me.”
Rob glanced over his shoulder at the darkened Brandstetter house. Someone was sitting, half-concealed by an overgrown rhododendron, in one of the heavy wooden deck chairs. Rob turned all the way around and looked. The wood was stained dark and the bulk hunched there was dark, except for the pale blur of face and hands. “He do that often?”
“First time.”
Rob squinted. It wasn’t raining but the chair had to be damp.
Marge said, “They must be fighting again. I hope she locked him out.”
Rob sipped and set his Styrofoam cup on the ledge that thrust from the take-out window. “When did he come out?”
Marge swiped at the spotless ledge with a cleaning cloth. “I dunno. I think he was sitting there when I came on at six, but I didn’t notice right away.”
Alarm bells clanged. “I’ll just go say hello.”
Buffalo Bill's Defunct (9781564747112) Page 9
