Hangman's root : a China Bayles mystery

by ALBERT, SUSAN WITTIG

  "She's not wearing a ring." I would have noticed that right away.

  "He lives in San Antonio. They're getting married next month. Anyway, Smart Cookie isn't my type. She's pretty tough. And I've never cared for blondes."

  I swiveled to look at him. "I'm tough. And Sally's a blonde."

  He shook his head. "You're not tough like Sheila's tough— not these days, you're not. And Sally wasn't blond when I married her. That didn't happen until after we were divorced. It was part of her search for the real Sally." He said it with sadness. Even though they aren't married, Sally's psychological troubles have been hard on him. And hard on Brian, too.

  I raised myself to look in the rearview mirror, eyeing the gray. "I've sometimes wondered if the real China is blond."

  McQuaid pulled me down. "Don't even think it," he growled. "On you, gray is sexy."

  We didn't find the circus. The first house was almost okay, but it was located on a busy street and had no yard, which meant that Howard Cosell would have no shrubbery to dig up and Khat would have no trees to climb. The second house had a lovely big yard with bushes for Howard Cosell and trees for Khat and an enormous garage that would accommodate McQuaid's gun hobby—but only two bedrooms and one bath.

  "I don't think this will work," I said, picturing the morning traffic jams outside the bathroom.

  "Neither do I," he said regretfully, "now that I give it a closer look. But that garage is sure terrific."

  The third place had three bedrooms and two baths, there was a large garage, and the yard was lovely, but the lot backed up to 1-35. As we stood on the front porch, the rumble of the traffic was deafening.

  "No," I said. A big rig hit its air horn and I put my fingers in my ears.

  "Right," McQuaid said with a sigh. He thanked the landlord and we got back in his pickup. "How about going over to Bean's for a beer?" he asked.

  I sat back, surrounded by the truck's familiar smells—vinyl seats, basset hound, gun oil, McQuaid's Old Spice. "A beer sounds good," I said. "Bean's sounds good, too. I'm sorry about the houses."

  "Me, too," he said, as we drove off. "There were certain things I liked about each of them, but I guess I just didn't put it all together." He turned right onto Cedar. "Should I keep look-ing?"

  "How else are we going to find a house?"

  "I just meant that. . . You didn't like any of these. I thought maybe—"

  ''We didn't like any of these," I said. "I wouldn't mind seeing a few more." I glanced at him sideways, liking the rugged look of him in his plaid shirt and jeans and cowboy boots. Not handsome, necessarily, but nice looking, craggy. Definitely sexy. I thought of a certain stunning blond engaged person and half smiled.

  His hand slid over mine on the seat. "You're sure you're not just agreeing because you think it's what I want to do?"

  "Let's not complicate this," I said. "I'm agreeing because you want to do it and I want to do it and we want to do it. Anyway," I

  added practically, "you and Brian need a place to live. And I need more room at the shop. If we can find the right place, it makes sense to do it together." So Fm rational. Does that have to mean I have an issue around intimacy?

  The laugh lines crinkled at the corners of McQuaid's eyes. "Yeah," he said. "It makes sense. I'll start over again tomorrow. There must h^ someplace we can live." He turned onto Guadalupe. "Fm hungry. How about some fajitas to go with that beer?"

  Bean's Bar & Grill, which is located on Guadalupe between the railroad track and Purley's Tire Company, used to be called Lillie's Place. It's a down-home Texas eating and drinking hangout with a pool hall in the back. Plastic baskets of tortilla chips and crockery mugs of fiery salsa are plunked down without ceremony on plain wooden tables. A chandelier made out of a real wagon wheel wound with lights shaped like red and green jalapeno peppers hangs from the ceiling, and a fake cigar-store Indian stands in the corner with a politically correct sign in one hand, requesting that people refer to him as a Native American. The restroom doors are labeled "Bulls" and "Heifers," and favorites on the jukebox are "Mamas, Don't Let Your Babies Grow Up to Be Cowboys" and "Your Cheatin' Heart."

  Bob Godwin, the owner of Bean's, was behind the bar, where he usually is at this hour of the evening. When McQuaid and I sat down, he came over to the table, bringing a pitcher of Lone Star and two mugs. We do this so often that he doesn't need to ask what we want to drink.

  "What're ya eatin' tonight?" Bob is paunchy and snaggle-toothed, with thinning red hair, a spider tattoo on his forearm, and a stained white apron tied over his jeans. He and one of his Vietnam buddies bought the bar a couple of years back. The buddy was killed in a hunting accident, and Bob inherited his share.

  "Fajitas for me," McQuaid said, filling our mugs. "Chicken." The menu is written in hieroglyphics on a chalkboard, under a hand-lettered sign that says "7-Course Dinner = A Six-Pack and

  a Possum." We don't need to consult a menu. We always have fa-jitas. Unless we're having enchiladas or chicken-fried steak.

  Bob grinned at me. "Hey, don't you look purty tonight, China. Big date?"

  "Been house hunting," McQuaid said, casually. My head jerked up. I wasn't sure I was ready to go public just yet.

  "No kiddin'," Bob said incredulously. "You two?"

  I frowned. "Does that strike you as odd?"

  "Hey, no offense." Bob flapped his apron at a fly. "I just meant that ya'll seem kinda, well, not romantic enough. If you know what I mean." His shoulders were apologetic.

  "Is romance the only reason for two people to live together?" I asked crisply.

  "No, ma'am." Bob grinned, showing a broken tooth. "If you ain't got romance, a little sex'll do just fine." He lifted his order book. "What're you havin' tonight, China?"

  "Fajitas," I said. "Beef."

  "Guacamole's extra good." Bob waggled his eyebrows suggestively. "How about a double order?"

  McQuaid looked at me and we both shrugged. Bob, who's skilled at reading the small signals people send one another over the table, said, "Guarantee you won't be sorry. Organic avocados."

  "Okay," McQuaid said, deciding for us both.

  "What's an organic avocado?" I asked, but a George Strait song overpowered me, and anyway. Bob had already pocketed his order book and headed for the kitchen. At the table beside us, a family was trading jokes in rapid-fire Spanish, punctuated by laughter. At the table on the other side, two men in suits and cowboy boots were bent earnestly over a calculator, copying numbers onto their napkins—a business deal in progress. At the end of the bar, a group of guys were throwing darts at a poster of the governor in a white cowboy outfit, astride a white motorcycle—a blowup of the cover of a recent Texas Monthly. The governor, too.

  has been known to stop in from time to time. Last month the Enterprise ran a picture of her throwing darts at herself and her white motorcycle. Bean s draws all kinds.

  Another George Strait and two Willies later, Bob was back, loaded with plates of chicken and beef, tortillas, sour cream, cheese, onions, refried beans, and rice, and a huge red pottery bowl of guacamole—all balanced on his forearms. Bob scorns trays. He says that wearing an apron is bad enough; carrying a tray makes him feel like a butler.

  "Hear ya'll had a little excitement up to th' college this afternoon," he said to McQuaid, setting down a bowl of grilled chicken for the make-it-yourself fajitas.

  "Yeah," McQuaid said, refilling my mug.

  "Too bad 'bout Harwick," Bob said. He put down the tortillas. "Any idea who did it?"

  McQuaid sloshed beer onto the table. "What do you mean, who did it?" he demanded testily, grabbing a handful of paper napkins to stem the tide. "The man hung himself."

  "Not 'cordin' to Bubba," Bob said, arranging sour cream, onions, and cheese around the tortillas. "He was in here at happy hour with some real purty blond gal. I heard 'em talkin'. Kind of interestin', I thought. Almost never see Bubba in here durin' the day. He mostly comes in to catch the Spurs on tee vee, play a little pool. Don't know who the gal was.
Real purty, though. High class." He set down the guacamole and began wiping up the rest of McQuaid's puddle. "You folks ready for another pitcher?"

  I stared at him. "Aren't you going to tell us what they said?"

  Bob stopped wiping, perplexed. Then his expression cleared. "Oh, you mean 'bout Harwick."

  "Yeah," McQuaid said. "About Harwick."

  The jukebox started again, and Bob raised his voice to be heard over Way Ion Jennings. "Didn't catch it all, but it had some-thin' to do with a pipe. Bubba was sayin' that Harwick lacked a

  foot of bein able to reach up to this pipe that the rope was slung across. Said the guy couldn'ta done it himself. Little short fella, y'know." Bob held his hand at shoulder height. "'Bout so high. Cocky. Sorta like a kid, or a banty rooster. Not much to crow about, but he loved tVare back on his heels an' let 'er rip."

  "Oh, so you knew him," I said.

  "You bet." Bob wiped his hands on his dirty apron. "Used to come in, get a beer on Saturday nights, talk to a few of the guys. One in particular, as I recall. Some friend of his. Max somethin' or other." He frowned. "Wonder where Max's been hangin' out lately. Haven't seen him."

  "Maybe Harwick couldn't reach the pipe," McQuaid said, "but he could have thrown the rope over it." He began to load chicken onto his tortilla.

  "Not so fast," I objected, remembering. "There was only a two- or three-inch clearance between the pipe and the ceiling. It'd be tough to toss a rope through." The skin on my arms prickled. "You know, I didn't think about it," I said slowly, "but Bub-ba's right. The ceilings in that old building are high, twelve feet, at least." I did a rapid calculation. "Harwick was about a foot shy of reaching that pipe. There's no way he could have knotted that rope around it."

  McQuaid looked at me. "Maybe he put something on the desk to stand on."

  "If he did, he didn't leave it on the desk," I said. "Or on the floor." I was suddenly intrigued, thinking of the chants and the signs in the mall that afternoon. "Hang Harwick instead." Was it possible that sombody else had hung Harwick? He was a small man, and he might not have been fully conscious when he was hung. If he had been subdued first, the autopsy would indicate how it was done. A blow to the head, maybe. I thought of the brown liquid in the bottom of the coffee cup on his desk. Or a sedative.

  McQuaid looked up at Bob. "Has Bubba got a suspect yet?"

  "The way Dottie tells it," I said, "nobody liked him. There'll probably be a flock of suspects."

  Bob raised his shoulders and dropped them in a quien sabe? gesture. "Don't think so." He grinned. "Unless maybe it's that blonde. He was sure watchin' her mighty close."

  "She's the chief of Campus Security," McQuaid said, lathering sour cream onto his chicken.

  Bob's eyebrows were two bushy red arches. "No shit.'" He whistled. "Boy, I tell you, you can lock me in her jail any ol' time."

  "Forget it," McQuaid said. "The guy she's engaged to is one big sonofagun. Real John Wayne type." I grinned, imagining Smart Cookie married to the Duke. It would serve them both right.

  Bob shook his head sadly. "Story of my life. How 'bout that pitcher?"

  An hour later, after the fajitas, a second pitcher, and a fast round of pool, McQuaid and I adjourned to my place. What happened after that was slow, sweet, and deeply satisfying.

  "Romantic enough to suit you?" McQuaid asked, dislodging Khat from the corner of the bed and untangling his long legs from the sheet. Khat flicked his tail to indicate his displeasure with the entire sequence of events and jumped up onto the top of the wardrobe, where he licked one paw and gave us the evil eye.

  "I'm with Bob," I remarked, stretching lazily. "If you ain't got romance, a little sex'll do just fine."

  McQuaid got up, straightened the sheet and the blanket and tucked them in at the foot of the bed. He climbed back in and pulled me against him.

  "How about a lot of sex?" he asked, his voice muffled.

  As I was drifting off to sleep a little while later, snuggled up against McQuaid's warm back, I reflected that living together

  had certain fringe benefits. It might not be so hard to get used to, after all. Sleepily, I said, "I love you," to McQuaid's back.

  He reached a hand around and patted the first thing he touched, which happened to be my hip. "Me, too," he mumbled.

  Bob was right. No romance.

  The party at Ruby's the next night reminded me of a reunion of sharks. Amy arrived late, clad in black baggies and a black tee with the words "Cows Cry Louder Than Cabbages" on the front and "Eat Your Veggies" on the back. The short red hair over her ears was freshly clipped and the little tail in back was tied with a string and decorated with a black feather. She was sullen, responding to most questions with a muttered "yes" or "no" and inclined to snap. She pointedly refused Ruby's roast beef and concentrated ostentatiously on carrots and string beans.

  The other guests behaved with about the same degree of civility. Ruby's mother, a thin-lipped, sharp-chinned woman, never once spoke directly to her newfound granddaughter and spent the entire evening looking as if she smelled something she didn't like. Shannon, Ruby's other daughter, seemed to suspect her stepsister of planning to make off with the family silver. Ruby's sister Ramona made a half-effort to engage Amy, and when she was rebuffed, lapsed into a pout. Ruby tried to paper over everybody's surliness by laughing too loud and being too cheerful, while I attemped to steer the combatants toward neutral territory. By nine-thirty, I was ready to call it an evening.

  "It isn't going too well, is it?" Ruby said to me in the kitchen, where we were putting the dessert plates into the dishwasher. Shannon, Ramona, and Ruby's mother were settling down to Trivial Pursuit. Amy had been in the bathroom for ten minutes.

  "I'm afraid not," I said. "Your mother and sister don't seem

  crazy about adding onto the family, and Shannon thinks Amy is a cat burglar."

  Ruby slammed the dishwasher defiantly. "They can think whatever they damn please." She poked the buttons and the dishwasher began to hum. "Amy's my daughter. Fm not going to let my family come between us again."

  I swiped the counter once more. "I wish you'd go slow," I said. "Don't charge into a relationship that might not work out."

  "Why shouldn't it work out?" Ruby demanded. "There's plenty of room here for two people. She could have her own private entrance."

  I stared at her. "You're thinking of asking Amy to move in with you?"

  A pan in her hand, Ruby opened the cupboard. "Why not?"

  "Doesn't she already have a place?"

  Ruby shoved the pan in and slammed the door. "Sure. But you know what apartment rents are like. Living with me wouldn't cost her anything. She could finish school, get a job—"

  "Ruby," I said quietly, "you are moving very fast. Give yourself a little time, for crying out loud. What if she isn't the person you think she is?"

  "Of course she is who I think she is." Ruby was brisk. "She's my daughter. I have a copy of her birth certificate."

  "That's not what I mean," I said. I thought about the vicious Amy I had met that afternoon, the one who had called Harwick a sadist, a butcher. She might be Ruby's daughter, but there was something deep within her—some savage hatred, some ferocity—that Ruby had yet to witness. What was at the root of it? Was it her mother's abandonment that fueled Amy? Was it Ruby herself that Amy hated?

  Ruby sounded weary. "I don't know why you're always so negative, China. I've never done anything for Amy. Giving her a place to live seems like a nice way to start."

  "I'm not negative," I said, irritated. "Fm realistic. It's not a good idea to jump into a living situation, especially with somebody you don't know. And might not like if you—"

  Ruby slammed her hand on the counter. "What's wrong with you, China?" she burst out angrily. "Don't you have any heart} Can't you imagine what it's like to care enough to want to live with somebody? You know, sometimes I really feel sorry for you, stuck forever in that head of yours. Just look at this business with you and McQuaid."

&nb
sp; "What do you know about me and McQuaid?"

  "I know what you've told me. Here you are, faced with the biggest decision of your life, and all you can think of is how many bathrooms you need. What's so important about bathrooms? Where's/o^^?"

  "It's not necessarily the biggest decision of my life," I said, beginning to feel angry, too. "The biggest decision of my life was deciding to go to law school."

  "You didn't decide on law school," Ruby reminded me. "Your dad did."

  She was right. My father made that choice for me. But even if he hadn't pushed me, I would have jumped. There never was any question who had the power in my family, so there wasn't any choice of role models: I would grow up to be as nearly like my father as possible, to the point of rejecting relationships, softness, the feminine. As the feminists say, I was male identified to the max. Changing hasn't been easy. But I wasn't going to give Ruby the satisfaction of agreeing with her.

  "I am perfectly capable of making my own decisions," I snapped. "Then and now."

  "Bully for you," Ruby said sarcastically. "So am I. And in this case I am making the right one, so I'll thank you to butt out."

  We glared at one another. Ruby and I don't argue often, and when we do, it's queen size. It can go on for days while we hiss

  and sputter like twin volcanos, until some sort of earthquake moves one of us to change her position and relieve the pressure. Or until we both explode and bury ourselves in fallout.

  "Excuse me," Amy said from the doorway. "My ride's picking me up out front. Thank you for the dinner. It was lovely." Her acid smile and caustic tone gave the lie to her words her words.

  Ruby rushed over to her daughter. "Fm so glad you could come," she said with exaggerated enthusiasm, putting her arm around Amy's shoulders. "And don't forget about that lunch. It will be such fun to get together. Won't it?"

  I gritted my teeth. Ruby's tone was so sickeningly sweet, it could have attracted flies. I wouldn't have been surprised to hear her call Amy "darling" or "honey."