9
I SEARCHED the apartment to see if Lonnie had left anything behind that might tell us where he was headed. But the closer I looked, the less certain I was that Lonnie had done the damage. There was something unmistakably methodical about the way the place had been tossed—bureau drawers emptied, mattress slashed, the shoe boxes and clothes bags in the closets opened and rifled. Very little had been broken; and that seemed strange too. No broken mirrors, no broken dishes, no broken lamps or glasses. It seemed to me that a man in a frenzy, a man enraged enough to tear open the mattress and the cushions on the couch, should have been a little less careful about what he broke or didn’t break. It almost looked as if the apartment had been tossed by professionals. Of course, the fact that I didn’t want to believe that Lonnie had wrecked my apartment colored my judgment. And thirty bucks was missing from a glass tray on the bedroom bureau, along with Lonnie’s Missouri license, the photograph, and the return bus ticket to St. Louis. Still, the rest of the mess made me dubious and more than a little worried about what might have happened to Lonnie. Although it was hard to believe that he could have involved himself in drug trouble so soon after he’d been released from Lexington, that was what the evidence suggested. Karen herself saw that.
As I came back into the living room, she looked up from where she was kneeling on the floor and said, “It looks like a bust.”
I nodded grimly. “Yes, it does.”
Stuffing a handful of loose wadding back into the sofa, she asked, “Why would he do this?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “If this was somebody else’s apartment, I’d say that it had been searched by pros.”
“Pros?” she said, dropping the wadding she was holding. “Looking for what?”
I shrugged. “For whatever you might conceal in a cushion, a mattress, a desk drawer, or a shoe box.”
“Drugs?” Karen said, with a frown.
“That would be my first guess.”
Karen shook her head. “I don’t understand any of this. Did Lonnie have drugs on him when you found him last night?”
“No.”
“Then what...?”
“I don’t know, Karen. I don’t know what he’s been up to since he got out of jail. I don’t know why he came back to Cincinnati yesterday. I don’t know what he was doing at that godforsaken motel. Or why he did this.”
“Maybe he didn’t do this,” she said with a tremor in her voice. “That’s what you’re implying, isn’t it?”
“I don’t know,” I said, trying not to sound overly concerned. “It’s possible.”
She gave me a nervous look. “Then what happened to Lonnie, while these...people were searching for drugs?”
“I don’t know that, either.”
I walked over to the desk and started to pick up the phone.
“Who are you calling?” Karen said.
“The police. I think we can use their help tracking Lonnie down.”
“No!” she said sharply. “Don’t do that!”
I turned back to her. “Look,” I said, “be reasonable, Karen. Either Lonnie did this, which means that he’s gone over the edge and may try to kill himself again. Or somebody else came looking for him and did this, which means that he’s in deep shit with the worst kind of people.”
“People who did what? Ransacked your apartment and kidnapped Lonnie?” she said it facetiously, as if she were trying to make herself believe the possibility was preposterous. “You just don’t know him, Harry. You don’t know what he’s like when he’s mad or stoned. He probably tore your bed up because of me. It’s a symbol. Get it? That’s how his mind works.”
“And the couch and the bureau and the desk?”
She shrugged. “He was looking for money. He was looking for...I don’t know what. For some way to strike back at the world.”
“There aren’t any signs of a struggle,” I admitted.
“Signs of a struggle?” she said blankly. The certainty drained out of Karen’s pretty face. “You mean Lonnie might have been hurt, right? Somebody might have come here and...hurt him?”
“I don’t know, Karen,” I said. I was beginning to scare her and I didn’t want to. But it was a scary situation, any way you looked at it. And the fact that there weren’t any bloodstains on the floor didn’t mean that all the violence had been directed against the furniture.
“How did these kidnappers know Lonnie was here?” Karen said, as if she was trying to confound me with common sense.
It was a good question. And the only answer I could come up with was the Encantada Motel. Lonnie had used my name and address when he’d registered. Someone might have noted it, and then followed us to the Delores. That was, if Lonnie hadn’t trashed the apartment himself, as Karen had said.
The Encantada seemed like a good place to start looking for Lonnie anyway. Something was wrong at that motel. I’d known it the night before. The beating Lonnie had taken, the fact that his money was missing, Claude Jenkins’s intransigence about the police—there was something wrong with all of it. It would have helped to know why Lonnie’d gone to the Encantada in the first place. But the fact that Jenkins had said there were bikers there—bikers who dealt dope—was a fairly disturbing piece of information.
I explained to Karen about the Encantada, the bikers, and the fact that Lonnie had registered under my name. “I realize it’s a long shot, but I’d better try to find out what was going on at that motel. And whether Lonnie did this or not, I also think we should call the cops.”
“But we can’t throw him to the police,” she said in a shaken voice. “He just got out of prison, for chrissake. He’ll kill himself for sure if he gets busted again.” She put a hand to her mouth. “I don’t think I could stand that—if I put him back in jail.”
“Karen...” I said.
“Please, Harry.”
I gave Karen a sharp look.
“I know, I know,” she said helplessly. She had begun to blush. She wiped her cheeks with her palms, as if she could rub away the embarrassment she felt over still caring for Lonnie. “I’m acting like an idiot. I shouldn’t give a damn what happens to him anymore. Neither should you. He ruined your apartment, for chrissake. Aren’t you mad?”
“I’m worried,” I said pointedly.
She stared at me for a moment, blank-faced. “I guess I never stopped thinking of the police as the enemy. It’s a throwback to another era of my life.” She took a deep breath. “Go ahead. Call them.”
“You’re doing the right thing—for Lonnie,” I said with conviction.
She nodded slowly, but she didn’t look convinced.
I called Al Foster at Central Station and told him that I was looking for a missing person. I made up a story about being hired by Karen, then gave Al a description of Lonnie. I also told him that Lonnie was unbalanced—a possible suicide. I didn’t mention anything about Lonnie’s record or about what we’d found in my apartment.
“If you do turn him up, Al,” I said, “I’d appreciate a call. The wife is very upset.”
“Okay, Harry,” he said. “I’ll see this goes in the morning report.”
I thanked him and hung up. Karen was staring at me nervously, from where she was standing by the sofa.
“That didn’t hurt, did it?” I said.
“It didn’t hurt me,” she said balefully.
I walked over to her and put my arm around her shoulder. “C’mon,” I said. “Let’s get out of here.”
“Where?” she said, staring up at me with an uncertain look.
“We’ve got to find you someplace to stay.”
“I’ve got enough money for a couple of nights in a motel,” she said as we walked to the door.
“I’ll cover your expenses,” I said.
She shook her head. “I’ll pay for my own mistakes. It’s better that way.”
She started down the hall. I took one last look through the door at the wreckage, and sighed. “God damn it, Lonnie,” I said to myself.
/> I pulled the door shut, locked it, and followed Karen down to the lobby.
10
I GOT Karen a room at the Clarion, downtown. She wanted something less expensive, but I managed to talk her into letting me split the bill with her.
“After all,” I said as we rode the elevator up to her room, “he’s half my responsibility now.”
She eyed me sleepily. “I’m too tired to talk about it. Tomorrow, we find someplace cheaper.”
The room was neat and banal. A couple of double beds, nightstands with brassy lamps on them, a bureau with a framed mirror, a painting of a meadow hung over a color TV. As Karen unpacked her duffel I sat down on one of the double beds. It smelled of dust and laundry soap—that peculiar young-old smell of hotel rooms, like new shirts that have been hung in old closets. There was a phone on the nightstand by the bed. I picked it up and dialed the Greyhound bus terminal, on Gilbert. Lonnie had left so many possibilities in his wake that I had trouble keeping them straight. But I didn’t want to let something as obvious as that return bus ticket go by, without checking it out.
The clerk at the terminal told me that the next bus to St. Louis left at three that afternoon. When I asked him if it was possible to find out whether someone had cashed in a return ticket or not, he said it could be done, but that it would take some time. I gave him Lonnie’s name and my home number, and told him there would be some cash in it for him if he could get the information to me promptly. The mention of money shook the sleep from his voice. He said he’d get right on it, and I believed him.
As I hung up the phone Karen glanced at me, from where she was kneeling by the bureau. “Where are you going to sleep?”
“My place, I guess.”
“Aren’t you forgetting that you don’t have a mattress?” She gestured to the other double bed. “Might as well get our money’s worth.”
“I don’t think so,” I said, getting to my feet.
Karen stared at me for a long moment. A lock of hair had fallen across her eyes, and she brushed it back with her hand.
“You know I wasn’t inviting you to sleep with me, Harry,” she said with a touch of asperity. “I don’t make a habit of balling my husband’s friends. I’m sixties, but not that sixties, if you get my drift.”
I smiled at her. “I appreciate the offer of the bed. But I think I’m going to take a ride out to the Encantada.”
“At this time of night?” She pointed at an alarm clock bolted to the bureau. It was close to two.
“If Lonnie is in some trouble,” I said, “the sooner I get going on this, the better. There’s a chance I can make things right, if I know who to talk to or who to pay off.”
“You’d do that for him?”
“He’s still my friend,” I said, although I didn’t feel particularly friendly toward him at that moment.
Karen shook her head wearily. “He doesn’t deserve you, Harry.”
“What about you? You came when he needed you.”
Karen glanced around the hotel room and shuddered. “What the hell am I doing here? I should be home with my kids. I’ve got papers to grade.” She slapped her right thigh, as if she were disciplining a child.
“You know you could go home,” I said. “This is turning into a search for a missing person, and that’s my business. Not yours.”
Karen edged over to the corner of the bed and cribbed her hands in her lap. “I don’t think so,” she said after a time. “I mean I don’t believe that Lonnie’s been kidnapped. I think he just blew his stack. He’s done it plenty of times before.” She stared at her left hand, at the ring finger. I hadn’t noticed it before, but there was a light band of flesh around the bottom joint where she’d once worn a wedding band. She rubbed the faded imprint idly, as if the ring were still there. “Still, if something were...wrong. I’d better stay. Through the weekend, at least.”
“It’s up to you.”
I started for the door.
“Will I see you tomorrow?” Karen asked.
I said, “I’ll treat you to breakfast.”
“If you find anything out at that motel, give me a call.”
“It could be very late, Karen,” I said.
She said, “Call anyway. I’m not going to get much sleep.”
I left her sitting on the bed, staring at her invisible ring.
******
It took me about forty minutes to drive out to Miamiville. I tried not to think about Lonnie on the way. But it was hopeless. And the question that kept running through my mind was the same one that Karen had posed in the hotel room: Why the hell are you doing this for him? It was past two in the morning, on a treacherous winter night. My apartment was in ruins. A smart, attractive woman—more attractive to me than I’d wanted to admit to myself or to her—was probably tossing sleeplessly on a rented bed, worrying over a man who had almost destroyed her life and was still trying to destroy his own. And the man himself, the man I was looking for, was either crazy or criminally stupid or both. Why the hell was I doing it? Why wasn’t I back in that hotel room, with Karen? Or at my own apartment, trying to repair the damage?
I couldn’t think of an answer to my own questions. Worse, I knew that the chances were good that I was on a wild-goose chase. Karen hadn’t thought that Lonnie’s friends had broken into my apartment. She’d thought that Lonnie himself had torn it up, in a fit of rage. If I hadn’t wanted to believe that Lonnie wouldn’t do that sort of thing to me—to his old pal, Harry—I might have come around to her way of thinking. She knew the man; I didn’t. I was just going on an old cop’s habit of mind and some fairly dangerous sentiment.
Yet, in spite of the logic and the unanswerable questions, I kept on driving. For old times’ sake. For that dangerous sentiment’s sake. For the odd chance to make things right again. For my peace of mind. So I could tell myself I’d done the right thing—this time.
******
At a quarter to three, I pulled into the Encantada lot and parked beneath the huge yellow-and-red neon motel sign. The view through the icy windshield hadn’t changed from the previous night—right down to the lone Jeep parked in front of the Quonset hut with the Miller sign in its window. The sign was off and the hut was completely dark. At least I wouldn’t have to check the bar, I told myself. I hauled my butt out of the car seat and walked through the blowing snow to the cottage with the Office sign above the door. The lights were dimmed inside the office, and, this time, Claude Jenkins didn’t come out to greet me.
I rapped on the office door. When nobody answered, I tried the knob. The ice made the door stick. I yanked it open and stepped inside.
Claude wasn’t sitting at the desk behind the counter, but the TV was on in the little storeroom where I’d found Lonnie. Someone had turned the volume up—so loud that I could hear it blaring, even though the storeroom door was shut.
There was no point in calling out. The TV was too loud to talk over. I walked behind the counter and jerked on the storeroom doorknob.
Claude was sitting inside the storeroom, his back to the door. A small black-and-white TV was propped on a stool in front of him. The whole room flickered with the light from the television, as if it were a green campfire burning in a box. The back of Claude’s white shirt looked green. Even his red hair looked green. I couldn’t see his face from the doorway.
“Jenkins?” I called to him, over the blare of the TV.
He didn’t answer me. I wasn’t sure he’d heard me, so I took a step into the room and froze.
I looked down at the floor. It was too dark to make anything out clearly, but I’d stepped into something slick and sticky. The TV flickered dimly. When it went bright again I saw the light reflect off the floor, running like a lit fuse from the pool I was standing in over to Jenkins’s chair, where another dark puddle had formed by his feet.
“Jesus,” I said softly, knowing already what it was. Knowing but not believing it.
Then I began to smell it, over the burned-coffee smell, the stale urinous
smell of old cardboard boxes, the ozone smell of the blazing TV. I covered my mouth with one hand, and with the other, I pulled the Gold Cup out of its holster.
Glancing quickly behind me, to make sure I was alone, I walked over to Jenkins’s chair. The front of his white dress shirt was open, his black pants were unbuckled and unzipped. The rest of him was all red, from neck to thigh. A sock had been stuffed in his mouth. When I looked down at his feet, I realized it was his own sock. One of his feet was naked. It was red, too, from where the blood had dripped down his legs. The fact that the blood had stopped dripping registered somewhere in the back of my mind, although if you’d asked me, at that moment, what it meant, I wouldn’t have been able to tell you. I wouldn’t have been able to make a sentence.
I didn’t look at Claude’s face for very long. Rigor had begun to set in and his mouth was beginning to stretch into a gruesome, yawning smile. It was a particularly horrifying sight with that sock still wedged between his teeth. I could see from the rope burns on his wrists that he had been tied to the chair. I turned off the TV, stuck the gun in its holster, and walked back into the office. My shoes left bloody imprints on the linoleum. I sat down behind the wooden desk and stared blankly at the telephone on the desktop.
I’d just picked up the phone—to call the cops—when I saw Lonnie’s driver’s license sitting on the desk. I stared at the dried blood spots on its frayed plastic surface and felt my heart sink. Putting the phone back down, I picked the license up and slipped it into my coat pocket.
Outside, on the highway, a semi passed by with a rumble that made me jump. Its headlights flashed through the blinded windows, making barred shadows fly up the office walls and across the ceiling.
Unnerved, I got up and walked quickly across the room. I knew I was leaving a trail of bloody shoeprints behind me. But nobody could connect them up with me. Nobody could connect the murder up with Lonnie, either, I thought grimly. Not as long as I had his license in my pocket. Only that wasn’t true. Nothing short of a thorough search of the office and storeroom could guarantee that there was no other evidence linking Lonnie to the crime. And I just didn’t have the heart to make that search.
Fire Lake Page 5
