Mother Nature

by Sarah Andrews

  I took a deep breath. Not only am I bad at lying, I’m hopeless as a poker player. I don’t bluff well, particularly when someone is calling me on it. So I dug into my pocket and pulled out the card for the Wagon Trail Motel and with considerable misgivings read him the number.

  Reeves rewarded me with his very sleekest smile. The kind of smile a mouse must see on a snake just before it strikes. My stomach tightened. Reeves watched me for a while, evaluating my reaction. Satisfied, he put one hand on my shoulder, patted it cozily, maneuvered me out of his way, and strolled comfortably out to the curb, where he climbed into his truck and drove away.

  I forced myself to breathe. My mind scrambled like a lost ant, hurrying to reevaluate the man to whom I had just so unsuccessfully spoken, trying to understand why I had so thoroughly underestimated him. I had gazed upon his self-satisfied exterior and presumed him too busy with his own reflection to notice Janet, let alone wish her ill. But here he was, a man connected to her murder, and I had walked right up to him and gotten in his face like I’d thought he was a pump with a well-oiled handle. Well, he had instead pumped me, finding out just where to find me.

  I heard a voice inside my head. It was screaming, Why can’t you remember to watch your back?

  15

  I tried to tell myself I wasn’t frightened, that I was just a little overtired and anxious. Anxious that I didn’t know what I was doing. Anxious that people knew where to find me. Anxious that if the blows fell, I wouldn’t even see them coming.

  I sat in the truck for a while, staring at my hands. It was four-thirty. I had another hour and a half before it was time to go to the Sheriff’s Department to look for Deputy Dexter, an exercise I found only a little less frightening than facing off with Valentine Reeves.

  I drove north to the town square, parked the truck, got out, sat down on a bench, and tried to collect myself. I figured no one would pick me off right there in public.

  Sebastopol looked like a small-town America kind of place peopled by a lot of superannuated hippies who had settled down to raise kids late in life. The downtown area was a few blocks of spruced-up hundred-year-old shops interspersed with cupcake Queen Anne houses. The town square where I sat had a gazebo with a metal silhouette of a great blue heron stalking across its slate roof, a fond reference to the wildlife of the nearby Laguna de Santa Rosa.

  My stomach was hard as a brick; the only breaths I could draw were shallow ones. I was losing my edge, and not only that, I was losing my grip on myself. Who was I? I was a geologist, going undercover as a … geologist. I was Em Hansen being Janet being Em; no, I was a scientist, yes, a trained, skilled person, using this training and these skills. If police procedure wasn’t working, the scientific method would. Tonight, in the safety—no, keep it straight, the privacy—of my motel room, I’d go over my notes, line out my hypotheses, quit running on intuition alone. I would make a list of suspects, and remember to consider anyone even tangentially connected with the case. Especially big men, with big hands. Like Valentine Reeves, and Pat Ryan, and—

  No, that’s ridiculous, I told myself. Pat Ryan couldn’t hurt a fly.

  Except he was in the service. They teach people to kill in the service.

  Don’t be ridiculous!

  I pressed the heels of my hands into my eye sockets. Clearly I was losing my mind, going paranoid.

  Work, damn it! I pulled the list of bicycle shops out of my pocket. There were candidates right there in Sebastopol, and hadn’t I last seen the Duke just a few miles north of there? Hoisting myself resolutely to my feet, I shambled up to the corner and crossed Main Street, looking for a likely informant. A pack of high-school-aged kids were lounging about the sidewalk on a bench in front of a cookie shop. Most were dressed in oversized denims, dark T-shirts, voluminous winter coats that sat crooked, and heavy black shoes. Stringy hair appeared to be in. Some were smoking cigarettes, trying to look degenerate. One ripening fruit of a girl was bouncing her body against a male of equivalent age, who was in turn trying to appear uninterested, but in fact looked scared. He was trying to hold himself steady against the girl’s attentions by bracing himself against a mountain bike. “Excuse me,” I said, “but do you know a skinny bicyclist named Duke?”

  The boy goggled at me in horror. “No. Should I?”

  “Okay, then,” I said, pulling the list out of my pocket, “can you tell me where to find a place called the Bicycle Factory?”

  The boy’s eyes widened further. The girl stopped bumping him, fixed me with a virulent stare, and began to fiddle with a small diamond stud that was pierced through her nubile nose.

  I gave her a back-off-I’m-older-than-you glare and spoke again to the boy. “The Bicycle Factory?”

  He bunched up his shoulders and frowned like the whole world had gone crazy and he had the misery of being the only one left sane. “Jeez, it’s across the street, lady. You just came from there.”

  Trying not to look as stupid as I felt, I recrossed the street and passed into a turn-of-the-century brick building, where I located a salesperson and repeated my question.

  “Duke? No Dukes here,” he drawled.

  “Oh. You know a Janet Pinchon?”

  “No, should I?”

  I eased jangled nerves a while in a bookstore called Copperfield’s, then hit the sidewalk again and walked until I came to the post office, a smallish Greek Revival job. There was a phone booth under a winter-naked Japanese magnolia tree in front of the building, so I took another shot at reaching Suzanne Cousins. Again a machine answered, and again I left my name and phone number, imploring her to phone me back. I wondered if she was actually there and just using the answering machine to screen her calls.

  Of course, the telephone kept my precious coins.

  Getting back into the little blue truck, I searched out the other two bicycle shops in Sebastopol, found that one had closed and the other sold mostly kids’ knobby-tire specials. I drove next to Santa Rosa, which boasted a longer list of shops, and managed to find two of them before closing time. One person knew Janet—as a customer only, good taste, lots of cash—but no one knew a skinny spandex freak named Duke. This saleswoman suggested I try a repairman named Arnie, who worked at a place called the Pedal Pusher. Arnie was a cool dude, like totally balls-to-the-wall. Arnie knew everyone. Arnie “left skin” on half the rocks and bushes up the single-track mountain-bike trails up in Annadel State Park. Arnie clearly made the saleswoman’s pulse beat faster.

  It was now six, time to look for Deputy Dexter. I decided to wait until six-thirty before presenting myself at the Sheriff’s Department, let the man get settled in. Okay, so I was stalling. I find it kind of difficult to walk into a police station and sound coolheaded regardless of the circumstances. And I was now hungry enough that my head was beginning to feel more light than cool.

  So I drove around downtown Santa Rosa awhile, dreaming that I had the nerve to walk into one of the restaurants I was passing and order a nice, big dinner, then present my burned-out credit card in payment. That way, I reasoned, I would be forced to enter the Sheriff’s Department, but at least my stomach would be full.

  A little red idiot light on the dash began to blink. Perfect; I was now not only starving, I was running out of gas. So what was I supposed to use to refill the tank, Murbles’ check?

  No, sucker, you mailed that away, and your credit card won’t be any good until Monday afternoon at the earliest.

  Oh, cool your jets, I have a gas credit card!

  I realize it’s a sick habit to argue with myself in the second person, but sometimes it supplies me with critically important information.

  I pulled over at a copy center that was coming up on the right, hurried in, and asked the narrow-necked student type behind the counter where the nearest Chevron station was, which query clouded his face with overwhelming strain as he tried to think. Turning to a big woman behind him who was slapping pages rhythmically through a copy machine the size of the Queen Mary, he whined, “Chevron
station, Milly?”

  Without looking up, Milly said, “Left on E Street to College Avenue. Left again. It’s just beyond your 101 overpass.”

  Milly was right. And after filling the tank, I discovered something wonderful: Chevron stations can also be minimarts. My blood sugar level was saved.

  I ran my eyes hungrily over the tightly stocked shelves in the glass kiosk where the cashier sat, fairly licking my chops in anticipation. Humming greedily to myself, I grabbed three burritos out of the cooler and a big bag of tortilla chips off a wire rack, then added a tub of bean dip to keep with the Mexican theme. I chose smokehouse almonds for the roughage, a Slim Jim for the B vitamins, and a quart of juice-flavored fizzy water to wash it all down. And for dessert? A couple packages of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. Thinking ahead toward breakfast, I pulled two pints of orange juice and an egg salad sandwich out of another glass-fronted cooler, added a pint of milk in the name of dietary diversity, and grabbed several packages of beef jerky for future need. I was all but chortling in my glee. Munching cheerfully on one of the Peanut Butter Cups—why not begin with dessert?—I got back in the truck and aimed it north toward the Sheriff’s Department.

  * * *

  THE SONOMA COUNTY Sheriff’s Department is located right off Highway 101 in a large compound of county buildings. Just follow the signs for the “Adult Detention Center” (and no, that big stone building with the tiny little windows is not a high school study hall, it’s the county jail), and you’ll find the Sheriff’s offices sandwiched in between the jail and the courtrooms. I parked the truck off Ventura Avenue and tried to enter from the north, but realized I was at the sally port where the bad guys arrive in ankle irons. Circling around to the south side, I found my way into the public waiting room past the courtrooms, where an information desk fronted a catacombs of low-ceilinged, fluorescently lit bull pens. I asked for Deputy Dexter and was told to wait.

  As I waited, I perused the photo portraits of Sonoma County Sheriffs Past and Present that hung as a decorative frieze around the tops of the walls of the room. They dated back to the mid-1800s. I was just making a scientific study of how many of the preponderance of Sheriffs from the first half of the twentieth century had chosen to have their portraits taken wearing hats when Sheriff’s Deputy Dexter emerged.

  “Bull pen” was an accurate term for the place this fellah belonged. He was big and muscular, a devotee of a gym somewhere, with a broad chest glistening with official hardware. His reddish-brown hair was trimmed in a butch cut short enough that the speckles of gray hardly showed above his ruddy, freckled face. His hands were the size of catcher’s mitts. “I help you?” he asked in a sodden growl, taking me in from the top of my uncombed hair to the soles of my red roper boots.

  “Deputy Dexter? I’m Em Hansen, a friend of Janet Pinchon’s, the, ah, woman who was killed here in Sonoma County recently. I understand you were the officer who took care of things when she was found. I’m in town to pick up her things, and I was just, well … I’m trying to understand the circumstances of her death.”

  Dexter turned to the woman behind the information desk, rumbled, “See if you can find Detective Muller, please. Send him around to conference room B.” To me he said, “Step this way, please,” and led me back past the counter to a tiny little room—about six feet by eight—that held only a small table and two chairs. The room had no windows and no decorations on the walls. Conference room B, hah; I knew an interrogation room when I saw one. I ran my eyes around the room, searching for the video and audio pickups for the taping system that would be hidden behind the walls.

  Dexter gestured to one chair and sat down on the other, lounging back with the ankle of one leg crossed over the knee of the other, the better to display his thick, muscular thighs.

  Moments ticked by. I had time to realize that he hadn’t bought my story, or at least not at face value. I sat down and tried to remember to breathe.

  I made a deeper study of Deputy Dexter. His eyes were bloodshot, the lids puffy. He wore his radio mike festooned through his right epaulet, and the holster of his Sam Browne belt on the left. Great, I thought distractedly, a lefty named right.

  I began to squirm in my chair.

  Dexter pulled a nasal aspirator out of a breast pocket and gave himself a good snort on each side, all the time staring straight at me.

  I cleared my throat. “I was saying—”

  “Mrs. Karsh phoned me about you.” He let the statement drop like a turd from a tall horse.

  Well, that kind of made me angry. I was there to do a job, just like him, and we didn’t have to get nasty about it. I felt that distinct heated sensation I always feel when I’m up against some damned kind of cow-shit-chucking intimidation specialist who isn’t going to give me an even break. I forced myself to take a very deep breath, and said, “Allergies?”

  That froze him in midsniff. His hands stopped in midair, halfway to his pocket to put the nasal aspirator back.

  “My cousin Lester had allergies,” I blathered. “Man, did he suffer. You ever think of moving somewhere dry? I’m from Wyoming, and it’s real dry there. I bet you’d like it there.”

  Dexter’s head tipped slowly to one side, eyes widening with amazement or alarm, I wasn’t sure which.

  “Lots of fishing, hunting, hiking,” I prattled on, kind of getting into it. “I ride horses myself. I get out there on horseback in that dry air and I always feel better. Athletic guy like you would like it. You should try it.”

  “Huh.” Dexter’s forehead was beginning to rumple with the strain of listening.

  “So hey, I just want to ask a few questions. I’ll bet Janet’s dad’s been all over you guys like a cheap suit. That can’t have been fun. That’s why the family’s asked me to step in, kind of low key. You understand. All this has been a real shock for them.”

  Dexter put the tips of his broad fingers gingerly to the bridge of his thick nose.

  On a roll, I said, “So I understand you were the one called out to the site where Janet’s, uh”—here I paused and averted my eyes, laying on a little anguish for effect—“body was, ah, found. I’ve seen the pictures that amateur took. That looked like a lot of evidence. We’re just trying to find out why this hasn’t led you to a suspect yet.”

  Dexter began to probe an ear with one of his kielbasa fingers, perhaps to figure out where the babbling noise he was hearing was coming from. He was saved from my next salvo as a second man bustled into the room.

  This one was the same vintage as Dexter, but hadn’t worked as hard to keep gravity from having its way with his soft tissue. He had become quite oval: oval face, oval gut, oval feet in soft oval shoes. Bright blue eyes. Plain clothes. He smiled. I braced myself, because he had one of those very unassuming faces that can really take you for a ride if you think you’ve gauged the guy at first glance. “Hi, I’m Detective Muller. And you’re?”

  “Em Hansen.”

  “M for?”

  “Em. Emily.”

  Dexter coughed. “Says she’s a friend of the Pinchon family. Wants to talk about it.”

  Muller gave me one of those bright smiles that tell you absolutely nothing about his mood.

  I leaned back and made a lousy attempt at looking relaxed.

  Muller arranged his face in a sympathetic mask and said, “Miss Hansen, is it? There’s nothing more I can tell you that we haven’t told Janet’s mother. It’s highly regrettable, but we don’t have a suspect. We’ve pursued all the angles, and we’re going back over them all, got plenty of men on it. But so far it seems like a random killing, and they’re the hardest to solve. Do you have any ideas for us?”

  Muller’s line did what it was probably designed to do: I felt the urge to tell him everything I knew just to comfort the poor man. But I managed to restrain myself and say only, “What did Janet’s boss say?”

  “You mean her former employer?” asked Muller.

  “Yeah. Doesn’t it seem odd that she died two days after leaving that employme
nt?”

  “Yes, Miss Hansen, we checked that out. They seemed as perplexed about it as you and I.”

  “But—did you ask her co-workers?”

  “I assure you we are very thorough.”

  I was stunned. Either they hadn’t asked Pat, or Pat had been afraid to tell the truth. Or had Pat fed me a line? I changed gears. “Can I get a list of what you took from Janet’s room?”

  Muller cocked his head like a bird examining an unusual seed. “No. Why?”

  “Because—” I broke off. I’d been about to say, Because I’m conducting a murder investigation here, but Muller was not exactly welcoming me as a colleague. “What did Murbles tell you about me?”

  “Who?”

  “Curt Murbles.”

  “Who is Curt Murbles?”

  “He’s—” I closed my mouth. Detective Muller had said he had spoken to Janet’s mother. Did that mean he had not been visited by the Senator and Murbles? If not, why not?

  Muller was asking, “Where can you be reached?”

  “I’m staying at a motel. It would be hard to reach me there.”

  Muller cheerfully pulled out a notepad and pen, prepared to write, his opaque little eyes trained on me.

  I sighed. “The Wagon Trail, on Santa Rosa Avenue.”

  On his way out of the room, Muller said, “Thanks for coming in. Dex, you see her out?”

  “Sure.” Deputy Dexter shifted his weight, preparing to stand.

  Desperation loosened my tongue. “What about Mrs. Karsh’s son?” I said. “He looks like he has a head of steam up. And his hands are big enough.”

  A flare of raw irritation shot through Dexter’s swollen eyes. His jaw tightened. “You mean Matthew?” he replied, his voice going oddly soft and silky. It reminded me of the tone Mrs. Karsh had used as she addressed her son from the porch outside her kitchen.

  “Yes.”

  “Matthew is disabled. You are not the first to draw the wrong conclusion from his appearance.”

  “You mean, as in mentally challenged?” I said sarcastically. That seething heap of flesh had been mentally competent enough to unleash a pair of guard dogs at me.