Jesky gave a gravelly cough and took a hit from his cigarette. “Why Tarian left the ring in her snotter. She borrow your coat?”
Flynn muttered a dry-mouthed yes. Wanted to tell him she wore the coat to Cliff Jaynes’ house once. Maybe twice. It came down to mid-thigh so she didn’t have to wear anything underneath. He thought he could smell her all over it and then briefly wondered if it was Cliff’s cologne. Either way, it was making him sick.
“Maybe she’s trying to tell you something,” Jesky said.
“She’s dead.”
“Dead people can still talk in their way. There’s something in it, son. Something that’ll jog your memory in a day or two. ’Fraid your brain’s not working after you banged it.” Jesky huffed out a jet of smoke.
Damn right there’s something in it. The bitch took it off and left it in the coat she’d borrowed. Just so as she could act out a sick obsession with her lover. Not something I can share.
“I would cancel Haynes Park if I were you,” Jesky said. “I don’t want Rosie getting into this. Just a feeling.”
Flynn heard the jangle of the keys as Jesky turned off the ignition, and he couldn’t help feeling an upsurge of disappointment. Rosie was his only hope. His ally. Who would he turn to now?
He looked up at the cream façade of the Hampton Inn and longed for a hot shower. Staying with Jesky gave him a lot more time to decide if he wanted to hightail it out of New Mexico or text Rosie again and tell her to drive him to the nearest substation because he was getting darn sick of running. He texted Rosie anyway. Told her no can do and to meet him tomorrow after the funeral instead.
“You can take mom to the funeral if you like, leave me here,” he said to Jesky.
“She doesn’t wanna go, son. Doesn’t want to face the press.”
Doesn’t want Rich and Miley seeing her dressed in an old tatty dress, Flynn thought. Her dresses weren’t tatty. They just weren’t designer.
“I can’t tell what’s good anymore,” Jesky said, “and at my age there’s hardly any time to make it better.”
Flynn could see the tears glistening in the folds of Jesky’s skin, sense the thing he dreaded the most. Failure.
“I asked the Almighty what he thought I should do,” Jesky said. “He said I gotta keep it together for you and your mom. Gotta stop thinking about myself for a change. But I’ve been thinking pretty hard about things lately. Especially with the gun under my seat. I was going to end all the miserable things in my head, stop all the I wish I’d done it this way crap. Only I looked out the window and there you were all scrawny and desperate.”
“You were going to kill yourself?” Flynn could tell the question irritated Jesky, so he kept on. “What good’s that?”
“Does the thought of suicide bother you?”
“Curious, that’s all.”
“It’s a lot of mess,” Jesky said. “You don’t want kids finding a thing like that. No, I wasn’t going to kill myself. That’s like the pot giving the potter the finger.”
“So, you decided to pick me up instead.”
“Yeah.”
“Just yeah?”
“Yeah, just yeah. It’s simple. A moron could understand it.”
“Are you insinuating I’m a moron?” Flynn hoped Jesky wouldn’t answer that. It would serve no useful purpose.
“You’re like your mom,” Jesky said. “Sensitive. When the chain came off your bike you tried to figure out how to fix it, cried so hard ’cause you thought I’d be mad. Then you looked up at me in that way kids do, all scared and stuff. I’ve often thought about that. Thought I should have fixed it for you, but that’s not how kids learn. It still gets me here,” Jesky said, tapping his chest.
“You grew up fixing things. It was second nature to you.”
“But not for you. My dad fixed everything when he wasn’t panning for gold in the stream. But he never knew how to fix people. He couldn’t teach me that.”
“You think I need fixing?” Flynn asked.
“Too much anger destroys lives, son.”
Flynn felt like he was floating, not listening to the ranting of a gruff old coot. “Listen. They’ll interrogate me, wind me up in knots and get me to admit to something I didn’t do.”
“All circumstantial.” Jesky opened the window and flicked a trail of ash under the wing mirror.
“I’m damned if I talk and damned if I don’t.”
“Ask yourself this,” Jesky said. “Why are you running?”
“Because I’m a person of interest. Means they’ve already made up their minds.”
“The press says you’re a person of interest, not the cops. You’ve gone and made it worse.” Jesky wasn’t about to cut him any slack, shoulders back, eyes scouring the parking lot as if he was rifling through his brain for an answer. “Listen. I doubt Tarian sprayed a gallon of fuel all over the place and gave it a good old torching.”
“They said a gallon?”
“The jury might find you accountable, unless you can figure out who did it.” Jesky gave him a sideways shrug and crushed his cigarette in the ashtray. “Gives you something to fight for, don’t it?”
The old man opened the console, took out a bottle of mouthwash and gargled, spitting a blue stream out of the open window. “C’mon. The room’s on me.”
Flynn studied the parking lot and he began to count the cars off in his head. No Cutlass, no men sleeping in the driver’s seat. He felt safe. For now.
FORTY-FIVE
It was early May and although the days were mostly warm Jesky shivered sometimes. He had a weathered, lived-in look Flynn rather liked, muttering under his breath as he walked to the hotel lobby. He didn’t look right, bent slightly at the shoulders under the weight of his bag. Maybe it was all too much for him. Maybe Flynn needed to leave him alone.
“C’mon, son, and don’t be spooking all those black-haired Goths with your stink.”
Flynn did his best to walk past the Goth gathering, backpack scrunched under one arm and boots clacking on the tile floor. There was no place he would rather be than New Mexico in the spring time, sitting on a cooler in the park and hitting on the girls. And here he was, wearing aviators and a beaver felt hat with a silver dragonfly splayed above the hatband. His head was roasting.
“Why did you make me wear this?” he asked.
“Try and look professional, son, like you’re a builder or something.”
“Might be stretching that definition to the limit, pops. FYI, I haven’t picked up anything heavier than a cell phone in days.”
Jesky patted the service bell, gave it two more stout taps before a young woman appeared with a squeaky voice and a thick smear of makeup. She looked past Jesky and gave Flynn a full once-over and a weak smile.
Flynn knew he didn’t look hip, but he didn’t look like crap either. More like a country and western singer with a limp. Ten minutes later they were headed up to the second floor and a dimly lit hallway, where a lady from housekeeping waited in front of the elevator doors contemplating her fingernails. She looked up when she saw them, white teeth sparkling behind a generous smile.
Jesky gave Flynn the key and jutted his chin at the room. “Stay inside and don’t go wandering about. I’ll ask her for a charger.”
The room was small with space enough for two queen sized beds, a vanity and a flat screen TV. Flynn flipped on the lights, took off his hat and glasses, and ran a hand through tufts of gray hair. He could hear talking in the corridor and a few shrill laughs. Jesky hadn’t judged him, hadn’t suggested he give himself up and Flynn doubted he was down the corridor calling 911.
Tossing his bag and jacket on the bed by the window, he hurried into the bathroom. Stripping off, he stood under a jet of steaming hot water, let out a long, drawn out sigh, mood soured by thoughts of going home. He considered Tarian’s departure from his life, how the execution of it was so cold-blooded. Sometimes he saw a silhouette in the golden light, sometimes he saw a pale face in the darkness. There was a heav
y stillness under the patter of water and his thoughts seemed to drift to a wife who said he was a sleazy bastard with only one thing on his mind. She had said other things too.
Give it up, pal, he thought. Yet his grief seemed endless.
Every time he fancied himself as a free spirit, he was interrupted by her eyes, blue and playful, which he wanted to see again and yet didn’t want to see again. Eyes he sometimes sought in the margins of a crowd, eyes that could tell he’d been watching her and looked away. There was something noble about them. He remembered when he first met her that she questioned his attention as if he wasn’t good enough.
Everyone hated him now. That crabby-ass detective, whose only fault was forcing him to listen to a detailed description of how Tarian died. Detective Temeke would enjoy reading through a litany of evidence in place of a prosecutor if Flynn went to trial. He had laughing eyes, but his face read something else, like he wanted to drag Flynn across the room and out the door. Probably wanted to tell him he was a pitiful excuse for a human being and how he hoped he would rot in hell.
The bedroom door slammed. Jesky was back with the charger.
Flynn turned off the water and wrapped a towel around his waist. He wiped the steam off the mirror with his wrist and stared at his reflection for a good few seconds until a new layer of condensation settled. He looked like a bouncer in a strip bar, or maybe Robinson Crusoe after the second shipwreck. He reached through a film of steam for his clothes, tore the labels off a fresh shirt and a pair of khakis. No clean underwear. He’d have to be damn careful with the zipper.
It didn’t take long to shave off the wiry stubble on his chin with a plastic razor he found on the sink, and once his skin was smooth and pink, he gave that reflection a mental thumbs up.
There was a strong whiff of stale cigarettes when he shuffled back into the bedroom. Jesky was emptying the contents of his bag on the bed and flipping through the dollars in his wallet.
“They’ll bring a charger up in a few. Wanna burger?” Jesky jammed his hands deep into his pockets and pulled out a twenty. “There’s a Buffalo Wild Wings down the road. They’re fast and they’ll walk it up and all.”
Flynn was convinced Jesky was broke, and being broke, he’d be hurting for money. “You got the room, I’ll get the food.”
Flynn used the phone on the nightstand, ordered two Big Jack Daddy’s and said he’d pay in cash. The guy on the other end preferred a debit card and they argued back and forth until Flynn promised him a large tip.
Jesky found a newspaper on the vanity and read out another announcement on the front page.
Killer vanishes into thin air. Tarian McCann investigation deepens as Duke City police stumble on evidence implicating Flynn McCann in a conspiracy.
The service for Mrs. Tarian McCann will be held on Saturday April 13 at 4 p.m. Clemency Baptist Church in Rio Rancho. Burial will follow at Vista Verde Memorial Park.
“It’s a scam to flush you out into the open, son.”
“I need to call Rosie.”
Jesky lowered one corner of the newspaper and peered over it. “Be careful. They could be tracing it.”
“Can you get a warrant out on a work phone?”
“Any phone.”
Flynn hooked the cell phone to the charger and decided to call her anyway. He wanted to hear how she sounded. Wanted to be sure she wasn’t being followed. Nobody knew about the board room extension and anyway it felt like he was having a bit of fun for a change, a bit of dash and derring-do.
“It’s me,” he said when she picked up.
“You OK?”
“Yeah.” He felt surprisingly so. “You sound nervous.”
“It’s the press. And the police are following me.”
“You don’t have to go tomorrow, Rosie.”
“I do have to.” She stopped when he yawned out loud.
“Sorry,” he said. “I haven’t slept much since I left. Go on.”
Her voice was already wavering toward tears. “Don’t be late.”
“They’re going to arrest me, Rosie. You know that, right?” He took a deep breath when she didn’t say anything and something in his subconscious began to tick. “I’ll come and find you.”
He hung up and stared at the ceiling for a moment. Rosie’s car would be parked on the south side of the church by the dumpster. It was where they used to sit and have coffee during the dark days. His safe place.
He heard two loud thuds against the door. It gave his heart a few extra pulses and he slid off the bed. The spyhole revealed a middle-aged man with a jaw full of gum. Not a cop, too shabby for that. It was Buffalo Wild Wings with their order.
You’re too jumpy, he said to himself, opening the door and nodding a greeting. He gave the man a hefty tip, closed the door and snapped the security lock in place.
They both ate in silence, Jesky rustling through the paper between chews and Flynn thinking of nothing in particular until his mind locked on the ring. Couldn’t help feeling a jolt of panic, as if he was on a roller coaster and he’d left his stomach behind. Should he surrender it for evidence? Would it injure his statement?
It was then he thought of Misty with her gaunt cheeks and smoker’s cough. He hoped she’d finally moved Paula out of that rat hole she called a home. He had helped her, hadn’t he? Done something good for a change.
Flynn tried to breathe with his mouth open, felt dizzy and his stomach tightened as if a tic had burrowed its way through the lining. There was almost no point avoiding the police any further, he’d only be caught in the trigger hairs of a Venus fly trap.
Sometimes there was only one option, one terrible, final option that would make it all go away.
FORTY-SIX
Memories hit hard as Flynn closed his eyes and tipped his head back against the pillows. That night he thought of Tarian and none of his thoughts were in the past any more. They were in the here and now.
He felt the tension seep away, saw a superbly starved, bone-thin woman with a small, flat ass. He wasn’t sure if he could remember her voice in the quiet times, the one that whispered and soothed. He couldn’t believe his good fortune at meeting her, this exciting perplexing woman.
It was no use trying to look scholarly among the glitterati, trying to fit in when you had nothing to offer. It was the first time he’d been invited to a party by the Tanoan crowd, and he was darned if he was going to turn it down. Rosie was there beside him, quiet and graceful like a greyhound. The girl his parents adored, the girl they thought he would marry.
Tarian took his breath away, the birthday girl with her starched white shirt. Looking back he realized it had all been too easy. The counseling sessions his boss suggested with a psychoanalyst because anxiety was a bear when it came on. It was his sixth session with Tarian, the girl with the golden hair. She told him he needed to get out more, needed to make new friends. It sounded like a good idea at the time.
He received an invitation in the mail, gold embossed lettering announcing Horse Racing at the downs in Santa Fe. Nothing like what he was used to. The Hey Flynn, wanna get drunk next Friday invitation with the stench of hurl all over it. No, this was the real thing, something he might never experience if he turned it down. An invitation from Cliff Jaynes.
He and Rosie had only been there half an hour drinking pink cognac and inhaling the heady scents of a dozen perfumes before Tarian began mouthing off about some radical environmental cause that involved the flight path of the Canada goose. She was so beautiful. Blonde hair grazing her shoulders and a noose of three-stranded pearls shimmering against pale skin. All of a sudden she went quiet, walked over and planted a big wet kiss on his mouth. It wasn’t casual. More long and drawn out to make a point.
He could feel Rosie tense as Tarian stared up at him, as if there was something in his eye she needed to take a look at. Everyone engaged in silent smiles, twitching more like because it was embarrassing at the same time. She stepped back a few paces and then remarked how she hated insecure men. A comme
nt tossed at him like a grenade to see if he would flinch.
Flynn thought he must have looked surprised because she grabbed him by the hand and led him to the bathrooms. It was dark with shreds of sunlight on the tiles. He knew exactly what she wanted to do. The physical perfection of her body and the sly glances intimidated him, but not for long.
“It’s only us now,” she said, kissing him angrily, almost fiercely. “There will only ever be us.”
They were the most memorable words out of her pouting mouth. Lips that caressed his cheek, leaving a trail of rusty red for others to see. She knew he liked her, watched her, wanted her. All those sessions in a private room where she wore a flimsy skirt, legs slightly open to invite a look.
Afterwards, Flynn pulled away. “My girlfriend—”
“Is gone.” Tarian washed her hands in the sink and stared at herself in the mirror. It was a triumphant look.
Bang went any further counseling sessions with Tarian Walley-Bennett. The months that followed were images of a marriage. He needed to make it all right. Make it legal. A king sized bed, clothes tossed away, signs of their passion. He had never been with a woman like this, loved like this. Fought like this.
There had been subtle changes at first. A few fights, a few long silences that always made him feel like he’d done something wrong. He was no longer himself around her. Perhaps he never had been. And then the terrible accusations, the threats. The beatings.
He had long since used up his anger toward her. He was angry with himself. Whenever he tried to please her he was doing what she wanted. All the clothes he bought her for Christmas hung in the corner of a walk-in closet, until the time he found them shredded in the garbage. He was scared then.
If he cooked, and he rarely did, she’d lift one hand to her throat, gagging like a toddler on broccoli. They’d go through the dance, he’d apologize for the mess, beg and flatter, and it delighted her no end. How she wanted to buy a special chair for special needs.
But that night she gave him a large glass of wine. She was watching him, wanting him to drink up so they could go out and see it. The next few hours were hazy. Even a gunshot he thought he heard and the pain in his groin that wouldn’t go away. He could still remember how his muscles tensed when she took off his socks and shoes and he didn’t like the leather straps around his wrists and ankles. But he was helpless. The drugs in the wine had made it so.
Dead Cold Page 24
