Hellbox nd-37

by Bill Pronzini

  “What are you going to do to me?”

  Didn’t have an answer for her. He shook his head, looked at her a little longer-notion in, notion out-and then turned for the door. Went on outside and locked up again.

  What the hell was he gonna do with her?

  He didn’t know yet, couldn’t decide. Should’ve finished what he’d started on the logging road, but somehow, he just couldn’t do it. Smacking a woman around when she deserved it, that was one thing; choking the life out of her with your bare hands, that was a whole different bag of cats.

  He might not of grabbed her at all if she’d hadn’t called him by his name. Might’ve kept his cool, let her go her way while he went his. So she’d seen his truck up there, seen him with his toolkit, so what? Real good chance she’d never have tied him to the Verriker place blowing up later on. But calling him Mr. Balfour, knowing who he was… this black rage had come over him and the next thing he knew, he was choking her.

  Well, one thing for sure: he couldn’t just let her go. Maybe he ought to let Bruno have her. No, Jesus, he couldn’t do a thing like that, not to any woman. Crazy idea and he wasn’t crazy, except like a fox. Besides, then he’d have to clean up the bloody mess afterward.

  Some other way. Had to be some other way…

  The dog was yammering for food. Balfour stopped to move the chain on the cable strung along the yard so Bruno could roam closer to the shed. That’d make sure the woman stayed put until he figured things out.

  In the house, he scooped up a bowlful of kibble and took it outside to the pit bull. Needed to put food into his empty gut, too, but he didn’t like to cook, never was no good at it, and he didn’t keep much in the house except snack stuff, potato chips and salted peanuts. Which reminded him-he was almost out of beer. Have to remember to stop on the way home tonight and pick up a couple more six-packs.

  He didn’t feel like doing any work today, but there wasn’t no way around it. It was already the first of July, the big Independence Day celebration at the fairgrounds just three days off. Concession repairs were mostly done, but there was still a lot of work left to do on the men’s and women’s crappers. He’d have to push Eladio and the half-wit and himself to get the job finished on time.

  Balfour drove into Six Pines, stopped at the cafe for a quick breakfast. Goddamn Jolene gave him a “Good morning, Mr. Mayor” look when he sat down-made him feel even meaner. Why couldn’t everybody just leave him the hell alone?

  He cocked an ear to the conversations around him. Couple of guys talking about the explosion, but all they were saying was what a terrible accident it’d been, and what a shame Alice had to die like that. Yeah, shame. Nothing about where Verriker was. Nothing about the tourist woman, either. Husband must’ve reported her missing last night sometime. But the law wouldn’t be out looking yet. Took time to get a search organized, and anyhow, they wouldn’t have no reason to go looking around his place a long way from where he’d grabbed her.

  When Jolene served him his eggs, Balfour got her talking about the explosion by pretending to be sorry himself about Alice. Then he asked, “What’s Ned gonna do now?” real solemn, like he gave a fat crap. “I mean, where’s he gonna be living? Anybody know?”

  “Well, he spent last night with Frank Ramsey and his wife. But they don’t have enough room for him to stay on there.”

  “Got relatives down in El Dorado Hills, don’t he?”

  “A brother. But they don’t get along.”

  “Somebody’ll find a place for him here, then.”

  “Sure. He’s got a lot of friends in Six Pines. There’s talk Jim Jensen might let him stay at his house for a while.”

  “That right?” Wasn’t what he wanted to hear. Jensen was the owner of Builders Supply, had the biggest house in town. Full of people as it was-Jensen had a wife and three kids. Verriker’d be hard to get at there.

  Jolene flashed him the mayor look again. “If that don’t work out, why’n’t you offer to take him in? You got plenty of room at your place.”

  “Comes to that, maybe I will.”

  He finished his eggs, paid the bill without leaving a tip. On his way to the fairgrounds, he played around with the idea of doing what Jolene’d suggested, offering to let Verriker stay at his place. Get him there and then set up something to take care of him and the woman at the same time, some other kind of accident. Seemed like a pretty good notion at first, but then he knew it wouldn’t work. Verriker accept an invitation from him? No way. They’d never been friends, couldn’t stand each other; Verriker’d know something was fishy soon as the offer was made. The accident idea was no good, either. Two fatals coming one on top of the other, both involving Verriker… make people suspicious, maybe start the county law looking his way. Besides, what kind of accident could he rig with Verriker and a missing tourist woman? And keep himself out of it with an alibi at the same time? No kind he could think of.

  Okay, another accident was out. What other way was there to finish Verriker? Never mind the woman, he’d worry about her later. Couldn’t just shoot the bastard… yeah, he could, blow his head off and then make the body disappear. No, that was too risky. He had to come up with something foolproof. And soon. He wouldn’t have no peace as long as Verriker was still alive.

  Eladio’s rattletrap Dodge was parked between the fairgrounds’ restrooms and the portable storage unit where he kept his power tools and other job-site materials locked up. The unit’s door was open, Eladio and the half-wit already working. You couldn’t trust most Mexs, but Eladio had worked for him off and on for years-Balfour hadn’t had any qualms about letting him have a key.

  He was still feeling mean, so he ragged on them some, told them to quit dogging it even though they weren’t. The kid showed his smarmy grin, but kept his mouth shut-good thing for him he did. Two of them were doing the last of the fixes on the two big booths that sold beer, inside out of the sun, so he got his hand tools and a couple of sheets of already-sized and cut plywood, and went to work on the partitions between the toilets in the women’s can. Already hot closed up in there; he was sweating like a pig before long.

  Some days he could work off a hangover. Not today. His head ached like a bitch and his gut felt as if it was boiling, getting ready to toss up his breakfast any minute. Couldn’t keep this up all day, not without a break and a little hair of the dog-two or three beers and a double shot of Jack. Take an early lunch, go on over to the bar at Freedom Lanes. The bowling alley was closer than the Miners Club, and he’d had his fill of the Buckhorn.

  He was thinking about that, outside using his table saw to cut another section of plywood, when Tarboe showed up.

  The faggot went to check on the concession booths first, so he finished the cut and took the piece back into the women’s can. He was fitting it into place when Tarboe came prancing in. Not a drop of sweat on him, not a wrinkle in his clothes. Suit and tie in the middle of summer, for chrissake. Like he was somebody important… a lousy small-town fairgrounds manager.

  “You and your men don’t seem to be making much progress, Balfour.”

  “Then why don’t you pick up a hammer and some nails and give us a hand?”

  Tarboe’s nose twitched like he was smelling something bad. “Why do you always have to be so disagreeable?”

  “Why do you always have to come around biting my ass when I’m trying to work?”

  “The mayor-”

  “Don’t start with that mayor shit!”

  “If you’d just listen before flying off the handle. I was about to say the mayor, Mayor Donaldson, called me this morning. He’s concerned that the work won’t be done by the Fourth.”

  “How many times I got to tell you it will be?”

  “Well, it doesn’t look that way to me,” Tarboe said. “If you’d started this project when you were supposed to, and worked a full, forty-hour week instead of whenever you felt like it, it would have been done long since.”

  “So you said maybe fifty times already.”
>
  “You know we’re expecting between fifteen hundred and two thousand people on Friday. The rows of portable toilets won’t be enough, we need all the facilities to be available.”

  Balfour gritted his teeth, banged a nail into place.

  “And all the refreshment booths open for business. Do you have any idea how much money we’ll lose if-”

  Lost it then. “No, and I don’t give a flying fuck!” Spitting the words.

  “You have a foul mouth, Balfour. If it had been up to me, you would never have been hired for this project.”

  “Yeah, and if it was up to me, the county wouldn’t hire fags to tell people what to do.”

  Tarboe’s mouth got thin and tight. “You’ll regret that,” he said. “I’ll see to it that you do.”

  “Yeah, yeah. Why don’t you go find somebody to bugger and let me get back to work?”

  Big glare. Tarboe turned away, then turned back and said before stomping out, “You know, what everyone’s saying about you is right. You really are the biggest asshole in Green Valley.”

  Balfour stood there with the sweat running on him and it felt like the top of his head was ready to come off. Nothing going right anymore, pressure from every direction. Verriker, the woman, the Buckhorn crowd, Charlotte, Tarboe, Donaldson, snotnose kids and half-wits and people he hardly knew… seemed like everybody in the valley was his enemy. Looking at him like he was a pile of dog turds, wrinkling their noses like they couldn’t stand his smell. Ragging on him, laughing at him to his face and behind his back, screwing him over, pulling the noose so tight he couldn’t breathe. Man could only take so much. Some of the pressure didn’t get released quick, he was liable to blow like a boiler with a busted safety valve.

  He couldn’t work anymore today. Just didn’t give a shit anymore. He bulled out of the restroom, yanked off his toolbelt and threw it into the storage unit, then got into his truck and roared out of there. Didn’t bother to tell Eladio and the half-wit he was leaving and not coming back; screw them, too.

  He drove over to Freedom Lanes, went into the bar, and threw down two double shots and a bottle of Bud before some of the pounding in his head and boiling in his gut eased off. But he could still feel the pressure like a hundred-pound sack of cement sitting on his shoulders, weighing him down.

  Out on the alleys, balls thudded on hardwood and pins crashed, and the sounds all seemed to come together into one steady beating noise that got inside his head like a voice talking, shouting. Verriker’s voice, saying the same things over and over.

  Biggest asshole I know, maybe the biggest one in these parts. I bet somebody’d nominate you for mayor, I bet you’d win hands down. Pete Balfour, the first mayor of Asshole Valley… mayor of Asshole Valley… mayor of Asshole Valley…

  11

  Broxmeyer was at the substation to take my call and showed up on the logging road, alone in his cruiser, within fifteen minutes. He examined Kerry’s sun hat, looked over the area where I’d found it, looked at the marks on the ground where the vehicle had been parked, poked around elsewhere in the vicinity. Accommodating, professional, sympathetic up to a point, his expression carefully neutral the entire time. But he was too young, too inexperienced, too detached to share my place sensitivity, or my fears. None of it seemed to add up for him the way it did for me.

  “Well, those tire impressions don’t necessarily mean anything,” he said when he was finished looking. We were standing next to his cruiser, me leaning against the rear door because my legs were still a little shaky. “Kids park up here sometimes. One of the other deputies caught a couple last year… you wouldn’t believe what they were doing-”

  “I don’t care what they were doing. All I care about is finding my wife.”

  “I understand that. But I think you’re jumping to conclusions. There’s no evidence here to support the idea that she was abducted.”

  “What about the other marks on the ground?”

  “Anything could’ve made them. No clear signs of a struggle.”

  “The hat,” I said.

  “Not damaged in any way. Nothing on it but some pine needles stuck in the straw.”

  “That doesn’t mean it wasn’t forcibly knocked off her head.”

  “It indicates she was here, but-”

  “Indicates? The hat wouldn’t have been if she wasn’t.”

  “On this road, yes. She could have lost it walking along.”

  “No,” I said. “I told you, it’s her favorite. If she’d been able to go get it, she would have.”

  “Maybe she tried, and couldn’t find it. You said so yourself you missed seeing it the first time you went down the slope.”

  “I wasn’t looking for it. It wouldn’t’ve been all that hard to spot if I had been. Besides, there wasn’t any sign that she’d been down there. I told you that, too.”

  “There might’ve been some that you missed. You were excited, you moved around down there calling her name. You could’ve accidentally covered up any she made.”

  “Except that I didn’t. There was no sign. I’d’ve found it if there was. I’m not an amateur when it comes to situations like this, Deputy.”

  “But you are the woman’s husband. Concerned, upset-”

  “There was no goddamn sign.” Frustration made me snap the words at him. “Not down there, not anywhere else around here. Just what I showed you.”

  “All right, take it easy,” Broxmeyer said. “I’m not saying it’s not possible somebody else was here when she came along. Just that it isn’t likely there was… an encounter. We’ve never had anything like that happen in Green Valley. Not a single incident along those lines.”

  “That doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”

  “No, but all I have to go by is what I see and what evidence tells me.”

  I said between my teeth, “So what are you going to do?”

  “The only thing I can do under the circumstances. Get a search team out here, enough volunteers to scour the entire ridge, if necessary. If your wife is still somewhere in the area, they’ll find her.”

  “When? How soon?”

  “ASAP. Meanwhile, I’ll run you back to the Murray place.”

  “No. I want to be part of the search.”

  “Not a good idea. You’re unfamiliar with these woods, the terrain gets pretty rugged higher up-”

  “She wouldn’t’ve gone that far.”

  “-and you’ve worked yourself pretty hard already. The best thing you can do is wait at the house and let us do the job we’re trained for.”

  Distraught old man, tired old man-I could almost see the thoughts reflected in the deputy’s steady gaze. Other thoughts, too, the speculative kind I might be having myself if our positions were reversed. I resented what he was thinking, but I couldn’t blame him for it. Stubborn argument meant delay, and it wouldn’t do any good anyway. He had that ridged-jaw look law officers get when they’ve made up their minds to go by the book.

  “All right,” I said. “Your way.”

  In his cruiser as we rode, Broxmeyer radioed his dispatcher to contact the list of search team volunteers. Neither of us had anything to say to each other until we pulled up in front of the house. One look was enough to tell me it was as deserted as I’d left it. I’d expected it would be, but I felt an inner wrenching just the same.

  He switched off the engine, turned toward me, and said with his eyes fixed on mine, “Mind if I come inside with you, have a look around?”

  I’d expected that. Good at his job, but not very subtle and pretty easy to read. It wasn’t that he necessarily disbelieved what I’d told him about Kerry’s disappearance or finding her sun hat; but even if he’d run a check on me, and he probably had, he didn’t know me or what I might be capable of. Without anything concrete to back up my story, he was inclined to be just a little suspicious, and careful, thorough, as a result. When a husband or wife goes missing under unexplained circumstances, there’s always the chance domestic foul play is involved. There�
�d been any number of high profile cases to make even a rural cop aware of the possibility. The bitter irony here was that Broxmeyer had retained that false suspicion and dismissed the much more likely one I’d given him.

  I didn’t call him on it. Or question him. Counterproductive; I needed him on my side. All I said was, “Come ahead,” and swung out. He was right behind me as I climbed onto the porch and used my key.

  Already muggy inside the house. I left the door standing wide, went to open a couple of windows while Broxmeyer poked around the living room. Kerry’s purse was on a burl wood coffee table; he stopped when he saw it, then glanced at me.

  I came close to telling him no, he couldn’t look through it. I’d have been within my rights if I had-invasion of privacy. But there was nothing in the purse he shouldn’t see, and the more cooperative I was, the sooner he’d get the hell out of here.

  “Help yourself,” I said. “Just don’t make a mess.”

  “Women’s purses are always a mess.” Trying to keep things friendly, but it didn’t come off. I just looked at him. “Well, my wife’s is, anyway.”

  He got Kerry’s wallet out, opened it to her driver’s license, read what was on the license, and to his credit closed it again without examining any of the other contents. Her cell phone next. He turned it over a couple of times in his fingers, aimed another glance at me; I took it from him, opened up voice mail so he could listen to the string of frantic messages I’d left on it. He seemed almost embarrassed when the last of them played out. A quick sifting through the rest of the items, and he was done with the purse.

  He made a fast tour through the other rooms, lingering only in the bedroom and then for just a minute or so, all without touching anything. Back in the living room, he said, “Sorry about this. But I guess you understand my reasons.”

  “I’d’ve done the same in your place.”

  “Situations like this…”

  “Just find her, okay? That’s all that matters.”

  “Do our best. Might take most of the day to cover all the timber up along the ridge. You’ll be here?”