Lizardskin

by Carsten Stroud

  Beau found himself unable to look at Vanessa, although he could feel the heat of her stare sizzling on his right cheek.

  Dwight stayed in his chair, looking up at Beau, breathing hard, blood on his cheek and running from his nose. His nose looked like a brake light.

  Ballard walked over and stood in front of Dwight, facing Beau.

  “You touch him again and you go to jail.”

  Beau was silent. He nodded once at her, and walked away toward the window. He looked out at the skyline of Billings and tried to imagine how he was going to survive without a paycheck. His meager savings would not cover his alimony and Bobby Lee’s maintenance and pay the mortgage on the double-wide. Well, the Harley was going, and probably the land on the Yellowstone.

  It had been nice being a cop.

  Maybe he could go back with Steiger?

  He felt the back of his neck burning.

  Nice move, you unbelievable asshole.

  Doc Hogeland was sitting back in his leather chair and sipping his coffee. Dwight’s hair hung in his face and blood pulsed from his swollen nose. His eye was blackening as he watched it.

  He caught his breath, coughed, and tried to say something vicious that came out as “Yer godda be id jail id ad our, you fugging cogsugger!”

  His father looked up, his face darkening. “Dwight! Shut up!”

  “You sday oud of dis, you old fool!”

  Hogeland Senior stood up and seemed to cast a shadow over everyone in the room.

  “Dwight! You have a streak of coarseness in you I find absolutely repellent. Since it is obvious that you are unwilling to defend yourself physically, it seems the better part of valor to shut the hell up and put something on your nose.”

  He leaned over and tapped the brass plate again.

  Mrs. Miles was suddenly among them, impassively observant. She glanced once at Dwight’s condition.

  “Shall I bring the bowl, sir?”

  “If you would, Mrs. Miles.”

  She was back in less than thirty seconds with a wide aluminum bowl, some swabs, and a packet of sterile bandages.

  Hogeland knelt before Dwight and wiped the blood off his son’s face, talking softly to him, making concerned and paternal noises. Beau and Ballard waited, standing, until the doctor saw them.

  “Please, Vanessa, Beau. Please sit down.”

  Ballard was shaking with controlled temper. Beau, although far from calm, decided to accept the fact that he had done it and could not take it back. He was at peace with himself. He’d do it again, and again. He’d kill the guy if it went that far. Then go bowling. He could always find work.

  He’d have to find it in Billings or Bozeman. He wasn’t going to move very far from Bobby Lee.

  The doctor worked expertly at his son’s face for a few minutes. He felt the bridge of his nose, eyes down.

  “Not broken, Dwight.”

  He slapped his son on the right knee and sat back. Dwight’s face was now half-hidden by a broad bandage across the nose. The bleeding had stopped. His eyes were red, and his suit jacket was covered with blood.

  Beau looked as if he had just stepped down out of a group photo, starched and unmarked.

  Ballard was only slightly less furious than Dwight, but she had by now gathered that something more was happening here than was immediately obvious. She struggled to remain still and attentive, her hands folded in her lap, her left leg crossed beneath her right, her ankles entwined gracefully, her mind racing.

  “Now,” said Hogeland, reclining luxuriously into the chair after his exertions. “That was very stimulating. Perhaps now we can begin to make some sense of all of this.”

  Dwight squirmed upright. He spat blood into the bowl and coughed twice. When he spoke, his voice was thick, and he could not quite achieve his consonants.

  He coughed and tried again. “There’s liddle to dizcuzz. I wad the bolice called. I wad—I want—this ban id jail.”

  “Son, hear me out, please, because I’m only going to tell you once. You two listen as well. This young fool here is clearly thinking with his pecker again, as seems to be a habit of his. Now Dwight, I can see that this is all a bit much for you, but you better just sit there and listen. And Vanessa—please try to relax child, you look like a leg-hold trap—Vanessa, first, this business about child molestation.”

  There was a sudden exhalation of air, almost a snort. No one looked at Beau, and Hogeland went on as if nothing had happened.

  “I’ve been an old country doc for fifty years, and this sort of thing gets brought up now and then. Did even back in the old days, before we had all the magazines and TV to get everybody stirred up. Nowadays, when there’s a nasty divorce going on, and you get a young lawyer with his brains in his pants there—just hold your fire, Dwight, I won’t tell you again—like my son here, I’d be damned surprised if sooner or later the wife, sometimes one of her family, wasn’t gonna go and run that sorry old signal up the lodgepole. What’d happen, Vanessa, if Maureen went to the—I guess it’d be the Big Horn County office?”

  Ballard considered the question, her face closed and set, thinly controlled.

  “If a complainant brings such a charge to the attention of a law enforcement agency, under Montana Criminal Procedure Law, the DA has no choice but to proceed in the interests of the child. A social services worker and a police officer would attend the scene. If the accused person was living in the house, he would be removed and held pending the results of an inquiry.”

  “And this inquiry—how would that go?”

  “The child would be examined by a physician competent to detect the visible signs of sexual abuse. And a psychologist would conduct an interview with the child.”

  “Yes. I’ve seen these interviews. Usually, you see a professional who is already convinced that the child has been abused, trying to persuade the child that it’s true.”

  “I bisagree, Bab. Ad thad’s nod—”

  “Quiet, Dwight. You’ve caused enough trouble already. Vanessa, I think we’ve all seen how Beau feels about this kind of an allegation. How does it strike you?”

  “In certain divorces, where there’s a lot of emotion, a lot of resentments, you come to expect something like this. It happens fairly often, more so these days since there’s a lot of publicity about child molestation. Tactically, it’s like using a shotgun on a butterfly, but the court has to take it seriously.”

  “How would you handle it? If it were placed in front of you?”

  “I’d have no choice but to proceed.”

  “And what would be the outcome?”

  “There’d be several. First, I have no doubt Beau would be completely exonerated. Eventually. But even the fact of the charges and the inquiry … many times you’ll see that the courts like to bring the charge in order to try the matter thoroughly. It’s one of the few criminal charges where you’ll proceed on shaky testimony, and they do it because the crime itself is so offensive to the community. And there’s a belief that a trial is the best way to exonerate the accused in a public way, if he’s innocent. That’s the theory, anyway. So Beau would be arrested, fingerprinted, held overnight, released on his own recognizance, all in a whirlwind of press. Considering Beau’s high profile right now, and the presence of the SPEAR people and the ACLU—frankly, he’d find himself in the middle of the biggest media hurricane we’ve ever had in eastern Montana. When it was over, he’d be disgraced, arguably destroyed. He’d lose friends, maybe his job. He’d be tainted forever. He’d have to leave the state.”

  “Not ever,” said Beau.

  “You’d do what you could, Beau,” said Hogeland. “But you know how it works. Meagher would never fire you, but I know you’d quit. That’s how you are.”

  “Maybe.”

  Hogeland Senior slapped both hands on his knees and stood up.

  “Yes. Well, it’s a nasty business. And I intend it to stop right here, Dwight.”

  Dwight stared up at his father over his swollen nose and the bloody bandag
es.

  “You cad idderfere, Bab!”

  “Son, I can and I have. Now, I have no desire to know who first thought up this vile stunt. I’d like to think it was that little viper you’re plowing—I’m sorry, Beau, but she is a bad piece of work—and not any blood of mine. I cling to that hope. But however it developed, you will return to your sweaty sheets and use your best efforts to dissuade this woman from continuing on this course.”

  Dwight blew his nose into a cloth, examined the results, groaned, and pulled in a long breath.

  “Bab … wad if id’s true?”

  “Son, look at me.”

  Dwight struggled with his dignity and raised his head.

  “Good. Son—you’re a good lawyer. A great corporate lawyer, and a hell of a litigator. How much experience do you have in criminal law?”

  “I ardiggled with Spellban Sterlig.”

  “And Spellman Sterling’s a fine criminal lawyer with whom you served for one year. I want you to search the contents of your heart, son, and consider the ways in which you have contrived a range of ugly consequences for Maureen’s ex-husband.”

  “Dose are legitibate and subbortable—”

  The doctor held up his hand and counted off on his fingers. “One, you have done your very best to prevent him from seeing his daughter, Roberta Lee, of whom he is extremely fond. Two—and this I find particularly galling, since it took place in my own hospital—you took the trouble to visit him in his sickbed and leave a vase of flowers there and concealed—concealed—within the flowers there was a notice of suit in behalf of Joseph Bell. In a sick man’s room, Dwight—such a cheap and shoddy trick—don’t bother. This is my hospital, and I know what goes on in it. Regardless of your defenses, it was—at least I hope it was—beneath you. And three, you, as an officer of the court, to use your own tiresome locution—you allow a cruel and brutal slander to go forth concerning a man and a father who has, in spite of your best efforts, conducted himself with admirable restraint and has done so clearly in the interests of his daughter. If he were the hound you maintain, he’d have thrashed you months ago.”

  Dwight’s face was set and his breathing shallow. He had found something of surpassing interest in the vista beyond the glass.

  “I hope you’re listening, son.”

  Dwight’s eyes moved to his father’s face. There was pain in them, and something close to hatred. Hogeland regarded it without reaction. Ballard and Beau watched the struggle and felt slightly sickened by it.

  “Good. Now, here’s what will happen. You will ensure that this slander against Beau McAllister ends here, in this room. You will inform Maureen Sprague McAllister, in whatever setting you consider to be appropriate, that should she continue in this course, I will have no choice but to sever her relationship with my clinic in Hardin. Nor will she be able to find employment in our Rosebud facility, nor in Red Lodge, nor in any other of my medical operations in Montana, Wyoming, and South Dakota.”

  Ballard sat forward. “Doc, I’m not sure you can do that. It’s probably unconstitutional.”

  “Perhaps. I’ll get Dwight to defend me. Further, you will use your best efforts to persuade Joseph Bell to drop this absurd lawsuit against Beau and against Yellowstone County.”

  Dwight stood up, staggered, and sat back down again, his hands supporting his face. Ballard finally spoke.

  “We have no problem with that lawsuit, Doc. We are quite ready to contest it. Beau did what he had to do. He saved half the town doing it.”

  “I’ve heard the circumstances. I agree you’d win. I find the whole thing—it’s a shabby display. If your mother were still alive, Dwight, she’d be furious with you. I won’t have the Hogeland name connected with this thing.”

  He leaned forward and pulled Dwight’s hands away from his face. He held Dwight’s jaw in his big hand and spoke quietly to him, as he would soothe a horse or calm a child.

  “Now Dwight, I hated to see this happen today. But you have been running wild lately, and it’s beginning to affect my business. There are a lot of people in town asking me when I’m going to rein you in. I can’t rein you in. You’re a full-grown male. But this vendetta against Beau has to stop. You see to it. No more of Maureen’s shrewish behavior. It’s ugly to watch, and it poisons the air for all of us. And I must tell you that, although I am the chief administrator for this hospital, I am under some pressure from other members of the board to … reassess the wisdom of our standing contract with Mallon, Brewer, Hogeland and Bright. Some of the members feel that we ought to diversify our legal connections. I would not wish that to happen, son. I know how much our business means to your firm. But it might be taken out of my hands. Do you follow, son?”

  It was clear from the pallor on Dwight’s face that he followed very well.

  “And”—he gently shook Dwight’s head by the jaw—“and put an end to Joe Bell’s lawsuit, son. Today.”

  “I’b dod sure I cab, Dab.”

  “Go to his house. Use your skills. Persuade him that it is not in his best interests to continue. Tell him, if you need to, that he has land development interests that need the cooperation of local businessmen. And these local businessmen do not wish to see law and order in Montana degraded by silly-ass lawsuits. Are we clear on this, Dwight?”

  Dwight sat back and let out a long slow breath. A curious kind of intimacy bound them all. It held an undercurrent that Beau could not quite identify, although he knew the effect of it was making him slightly nauseous.

  “Are we, Dwight?”

  “We are.”

  His father beamed at him and rose to his feet. He offered his son his right hand.

  “Okay, Dwight. We have a couple of things to discuss here. I know you’ll want to go home and get cleaned up. Will you shake hands with your old dad? No hard feelings?”

  Dwight hesitated, then took the hand. His father pulled him to his feet, gathered him in, and hugged him fiercely.

  “Good! Now Beau, will you shake Dwight’s hand?”

  “No, sir,” said Beau, quietly, almost a whisper. “I’d like to make you happy, Doc. But I can’t do that.”

  “That’s all right, Beau. Perhaps I shouldn’t have asked. I always push things a little too far. Now Dwight, you’ll want to get along home. You’ll take care of all this, won’t you?”

  Beau and Ballard could feel the sheer irresistible pressure of the old man’s will. He was a force of nature, thought Beau. Something like him comes along perhaps once or twice in a man’s life. If the man is lucky, he gets out of its way.

  Dwight let out an uneven breath, half snarl and half cry, and turned away toward the door.

  Hogeland spoke quietly to him for a moment, his voice a bass rumble in the hall, then he came back into the room. He was carrying a plastic bag with what looked like a cassette player inside it. He set it down on the table in front of them and poured himself a coffee. His hands were steady and his breathing even.

  “Well,” he said, “that was a nasty bit of business. I’m sorry for it. Beau … Vanessa. I hope you’ll forgive me.”

  Ballard did not return his smile. “Did you know what Dwight was going to say?”

  “Of course. He told me last night.”

  “And when Beau asked for this meeting, you insisted that he bring me along.”

  “I did, child.”

  “And you knew how Beau would react?”

  “I was prepared to let events take their course.”

  “Including having a bowl and some bandages standing by, Doc?”

  He gave her a wolfish grin. “Observant as ever, child. How like your mother you are. We all miss her terribly, you know. She was a good friend to my wife in her last weeks. Julia loved Bonnie. She was so vivid.”

  Ballard ignored this. “I have to tell you, Doc, that was one of the most terrifying uses of power I have ever seen. I feel sickened by it.”

  “I’m sure you do, Vanessa. Power is an ugly thing. So is surgery. But good things often come of both. And y
ou’ll admit that this abomination had to be stopped.”

  “Your methods—”

  “Are my own, child. Dwight is my only child, and he suffered greatly during his mother’s illness. As Julia wasted away on the dialysis machine, jaundiced and in ceaseless pain—Dwight watched all of it. He never left her. And when she died, he saw it as his failure. Her renal system was terribly degenerated. Dwight was always given to intense affections and passions. He sees things simplistically, as he saw Julia’s death. Black and white. He needs to be seasoned. Life will do that, I’m sure, but I intend to assist the process, and my means are my own. When you marry and have children of your own, Vanessa, I’ll be delighted to accept instruction from you in the matter.” His tone shifted, and he grew businesslike. He lifted the plastic bag and handed it to Beau.

  “That was found by Nate’s intern yesterday afternoon.”

  “Yes?” said Beau, turning it in his hands.

  “It was found on the person of our Jane Doe. The headphones were on her head, and the machine was resting on her breast.”

  Beau and Ballard considered it.

  “I take it, Doc, that no nurse did this?” she asked.

  “No, Vanessa. And the patient was under police guard, as Beau will confirm. Someone from the outside brought it in.”

  Beau was aware of the Polaroid photo in his shirt. “I had a visitor in my hospital room on Saturday night,” he told them.

  “Who was it?” asked Hogeland.

  Beau pulled out the photo and handed it to the doctor. “I have no idea. But he was there.”

  “He left this?” said Ballard.

  “Not in the hospital room. I found it under my pillow back at my house. He—whoever—had also been in my trailer.”

  Finally, Ballard said, “Why? Why do something like that?”

  “Why steal a morgue wagon? Why the fanatical resistance at Arrow Creek? Why attack Joe Bell?”

  The doctor shook his head slowly. “I have no answers for those questions. I have another question. Rather, a fact. We have a nurse complaining of a sore neck. She has a small but intense bruise on her upper mastoidal process. She was one of the two nurses attending to the intensive care unit on the night this machine made its magical appearance.”