Spooker

by Dean Ing

  With his second call, Gary had found that Andy Anderson could be reached at an extension in the El Segundo facility, unless he was temporarily visiting the test lab at GM's test complex in Arizona. Mr. Anderson's schedule was a very crowded one. At that point, Gary had postponed further checking.

  Now, he decided he had done the right thing to wait. It was only an hour to Porterville and, with any luck, he would soon have more pieces to fit into what might, or might not, be a puzzle. And after that, it was less than an hour to Bakersfield.

  The lawn at the Tate place looked like it wasn't so thirsty, he saw as he parked the Camaro at the curb.

  His knock was answered by one of the kids he'd noticed on his first visit: a blonde with a tight helmet of curls. "Which one you want?" she chirped, answering his question with another.

  "Maybe your dad," he said, because both men flew old aircraft and that might gain him a few points at the outset. The girl bounced from sight, and Gary heard a brief burble of conversation among sounds of dinner preparation.

  Gavin Tate came from the kitchen with the sleeves of his open-necked dress shirt rolled up, drying his hands on a small towel. Erect, taller and older than Gary with curly graying hair and a direct blue-eyed gaze, Tate thrust out his hand with a smile. "Mariette tells me you're the lawn police. Trust a realtor to forget his own turf," he said in a low musical baritone.

  “I dunno what made me say that when I came by before," Gary replied, coloring. "None of my business, actually; that wasn't even why I came. Your Piper wasn't the reason either, but I bet it's an old Cub, right?"

  Tate nodded, his face lighting up. In moments he was describing his old tail-dragger's pedigree and how he inherited it from his father. He backed into the room, waved Gary to a couch and parked his own rump on the arm of a chair as he spoke.

  Without remark, Gary noted the faint patchwork of lighter skin at the older man's throat - hardly more than a shadow, but suggesting old skin grafts, expertly done. The living room was furnished in well-worn American Second Mortgage style, as unprepossessing and friendly as Tate himself. On two walls were family photos. Gary recognized Tate and his girls at various ages. Two different women were represented, though, reminding Gary that Linda Seibouldt had married a ready-made family. The earlier photos showed a conventionally pretty young woman, roughly Gavin Tate's age. The most recent one revealed that Mrs. Seibouldt had been right: her plain-faced Linda had lost enough youthful pounds to reveal elegant cheekbones and the serene features of a Venus. Not pretty, but handsome.

  Gary told about his jointly owned Cessna and, unknowingly, spent too much crucial time cementing his new aquaintance. By now they were "Gavin" and "Gary." Apparently, they had both attended several fly-ins without meeting. "Your name was vaguely familiar though," Gary admitted, and then took his plunge. "The real reason I'm here is, well, it's my curiosity about something your wife might help me with. I'm not the lawn police but, in a way, you nailed me." He showed his ID.

  Gavin studied it carefully, then handed it back, grinning now. "Not lawn police, but serious grass police,"

  he said. "Haven't seen one of you guys in a while. I was with BLM for fifteen years."

  Gary shared his grin and nodded. The Bureau of Land Management had discovered many a back-country glade managed by people who took care of their illicit patches of marijuana more carefully than the BLM could ever manage timberlands.

  "This isn't a drug problem," Gary said. "In fact, it's not even official. It's about one of your wife's old schoolmates. You and Mrs. Tate will be within your rights to tell me to go peddle my papers."

  "Then let's see if we can tear her away from that lamb casserole she's salvaging." Tate sallied off to the kitchen and Gary was pleased that the conversation from there did not sound stressful.

  Linda Tate had a voluptuous bod; that was Gary's first inevitable impression as she strode into the living room because he had thought of her only as a face and shoulders. She gave him a Gioconda smile that must endear her to kids in school. It said, "Whatever it is, it's okay."

  After introductions, she asked him to stay for dinner. "It's really just leftovers. My kids have taken over the kitchen. They say you've got, and I quote, 'bad wheels,' so of course they'll want a ride. And don't you do it," she said with schoolmarmly firmness. It was hard to remember that Linda Tate was years younger than Gary himself.

  Gary pointed out the window and confessed that he'd driven his car instead of the Kawasaki. "No bike, so no problem, Mrs. Tate." He wanned to her because she'd said "my kids," as though she had borne them.

  "Tell you what: let me give you a little background and then, if you still want me to dinner, you can ask me again. If you don't, I'll understand."

  She turned serious at this; sat down, taking her husband's elbow so that they sat together, a supportive team. "Fair enough," she said.

  Gary began by asking her if she recalled a kid called Hoss, and if she minded talking about him. It was possible that she might not want the Lowery boy discussed in Gavin Tate's presence.

  At the name, a faint hint of distaste bracketed her mouth. "You mean Steele Lowery, I take it." She turned to Gavin. "Before we met. A real bastard." She virtually whispered the last word, but with considerable feeling.

  Gavin nodded. "Fresno State?" Exercising the smile lines at the corners of his eyes, Tate went on: "Lot of young guys milling around her there, Gary. I thought maybe I'd have tripped over him at some point,"

  Gavin said gently.

  "Briant High," Linda said. "He just pulled up stakes and dropped out one day. Never graduated that I knew of." She turned back to Gary. "Or did he? I'm afraid I haven't kept up."

  "No, he didn't, Mrs. Tate. He couldn't." And he told her of the single column in the Fresno Bee, trying to avoid seeming to watch her reaction.

  Linda Tate closed her eyes and grimaced sadly. "Oh, Lord, it must be a blow to his parents. And his little brother Danny, who thought Steele was a god incarnate." Now she shook her head, her gaze fixed on things far away, long ago. "Somehow it's hard to think of Steele Lowery falling into a hole."

  "That was my impression, too," Gary said. "And I'm wondering if he simply fell."

  Linda Tate, startled, gave a humorless huh of denial. "I'd like to know who could have pushed him," she said and turned again to Gavin with a few well-chosen phrases. Big strapping man on a little campus, mean to the bone, briefly her date simply to add to his conquests - which didn't happen, she added.

  Gary kept silent on that one. Perhaps by now she remembered it that way.

  "Do you honestly think someone put him down there and let him die?" She seemed to have trouble with the concept.

  "Maybe not in that order," Gary said. "But this is only my idea, Mrs. Tate. No one but me seems to doubt it was an accident."

  "Linda! Please, Gary."

  He nodded. "I've done some casual checking, and I know it seems pretty extreme but if any high-school hotshot ever built up more ill will, I never heard of it."

  "Oh, I think that's putting it too strongly. Hoss Lowery had more friends than enemies."

  Gary: "Friends, or cowed victims?"

  Linda, after a pause: "You've done your homework. Good point."

  Gary shrugged. "It didn't take much digging, Linda. And what I'm wondering is, which of those friendly victims might have been victimized once too many? Maybe gotten ol' Hoss drunk, teased him into that hole - something like that."

  "All of them," she said suddenly. "Oh, not really; he had his sycophants. And I don't think any of us could have deliberately - " She mimed a push with both hands, and shuddered.

  "How about the parents? Ruth Madden's or Andy Anderson's, or even Ken Kirk's? I admit that's a reach," he said.

  "A long one," Linda agreed. "Lordy, I haven't heard those names in eons." She thought about it for a long moment. A brief squabble emerged from the kitchen, centering on the words, "rosemary" and "garlic."

  "Pardon me," Linda said, and whirred away. The next sounds
from that quarter were more subdued.

  "Domestic tranquillity, it's wonderful," said Gavin Tate. "And she's its linchpin, believe me."

  "My mother died young, but I imagine your kids are lucky."

  A slight pause. "She's not their first mother, you know."

  Gary nodded. "Her age. The photos. I figured."

  "They were running wild after - after Marian died. It didn't help that I was back in Fresno State for the degree I should've finished up before I joined BLM. But when you're twenty-one, who can tell you how important that goddamn sheepskin is?"

  Gary smiled reflectively. "A role model, I suppose. Luckily I had one."

  "You a family man?"

  To his own surprise, Gary found himself nodding. Well, dammit, Swede and Jan were his family. The family just wasn't official yet. "No kids yet, but - call it a family nucleus. Works for me," he said.

  "Take care of it," Gavin said earnestly. "It has sure taken care of me."

  "Liar," said Linda, who had issued from the kitchen under the noises of two nymphets ordering each other around. She sat down and patted Gavin's knee. "It's Gavin who gives the care," she said, speaking to Gary but gazing at her husband. "That's what drew me to him, the way he cared about people. He was a man among big, beer-swilling boys. One who'd stood up for his principles, and had taken some awful consequences. I don't suppose he's told you. Or did his name ring a bell?"

  "C'mon," Gavin said softly.

  "Jogs a memory, but forgive me," Gary admitted.

  "This is the Gavin Tate who blew the whistle on those timber poachers in 1986 to his BLM bosses."

  "Ohh, yeah," Gary said. "Something about copter lifting of logs from public lands, at night. Was that the case?"

  Gavin nodded. "It was the helo that cemented my suspicion. The pilot kept honest maintenance records, he'd have been nuts not to under the circumstances. I claimed an interest in his big Skycrane and sneaked a peek. That damn helo was flying twice the hours it should've."

  "So you kicked over a can of worms in the boss's office," Gary guessed. "Bet you didn't win any popularity contests," Gary said.

  It was Linda who replied. "Well, let's just say they didn't want to hear about it. Pick your own reason,"

  she said.

  "There were no indictments in our office, and you were a kid at the time - so be careful," Gavin warned her.

  "No indictments. Just a firebomb under the hood by some space-age timber thieves to silence Gavin. It would have, too, but his wife chose that morning, of all days, to start their car." A silence, as the little team of two gazed at each other. "He almost saved her. It cost him two years of recovery. When I met him, he was building himself a new career safely out of all that."

  "I'd had enough," Gavin said. "Going back to finish school saved my sanity, and Linda Mujjer here saved my kids."

  "Linda Mujjer?" Gary's face reflected his confusion. Gavin grinned. "Bonehead Spanish; linda mujer,"

  he said, pronouncing it properly.

  Gary laughed aloud. Linda mujer meant "pretty woman."

  The two Tates went on for a time, recounting the days at Fresno State when a tragically injured man courted a blossoming younger woman. Gary did not have the heart to bluntly interrupt because they seemed to enjoy reminiscing. By now the odors from the kitchen had him salivating.

  They did not return to Gary's Topic One until Linda had recounted the fact that she'd had her eye on the widower Tate for some time. "Yeah, but I couldn't use an apostrophe for sour owlshit," said Gavin Tate.

  "So this twenty-year-old with the great shape helped me pass English, and the rest is history."

  "And biology," Linda amended with a smile.

  Gary's glance at Tate was admiring. People like himself sought dangerous work, but Gavin Tate had simply been doing an honest job and had stepped unaware into a high-risk situation. And had kept slogging through it to the end. To shift the topic, Gary said, "I suppose that's what I'm fooling with now: ancient history."

  "It certainly is," Linda replied. "You mentioned Ruth Madden; I hadn't thought about her in ages. So pretty, and so trusting, and she didn't have a clue. Do you know if she's doing all right?"

  So Gary told what little he knew about the Madden girl's move to Nevada and described the greasy niche Ken Kirk had found for himself.

  "Poor Mongo," Linda said, smiling. "Or maybe not, if he's satisfied."

  "And how about Candy Andy?" Again, Gary was alert to Linda Tate's reactions.

  "Plain Little Andy will do," she corrected. "Such a sweet kid, and bright as a button - but very shy. The truth is, Gavin, he was the one I had a sort of letch for. Though I think I probably just wanted to mother him. He seemed to dote on his mom, but I never met her and if I ever knew anybody who seemed to need mothering - anyway, there was a sort of quiet determination there under the shyness. A depth. Especially the way he shrugged off the worst of Steele's day-to-day insults. Bastard," she hissed again, then recovered her easy manner. "If anyone had a special reason to rejoice when Hoss ran off, it was Little Andy - oh, Lord," she said. "Hoss didn't run off at all."

  "Nope," said Gary.

  The eldest of the Tate girls poked her curly head from the kitchen. "The microwave dinged and Marlys set the table," she said, glancing shyly at the man with the bad wheels.

  "And you're invited. Again," Linda smiled at her guest. "We usually eat on the sun porch in summer."

  It wasn't a feast, but there was plenty for five: salad, a piping casserole of lamb with brown rice and a ton of garlic, with ice cream for dessert. Gary met Marlys and Mariette officially and knew he had set the right tone for Linda's taste when he claimed that his Kawasaki was more trouble than it was worth. Most of an hour passed at dinner before Mariette brought the Butter Brickie and Marlys added a bowl of diced strawberries.

  "My lady, Jan, loves this stuff," Gary confided, dumping a dollop of the strawberries onto his ice cream.

  "Bring her next time," Linda said.

  "In fact, you two can fly down to Porterville Municipal," said Gavin brightly, "just south of town. I can pick you up, put you both up for the night. And we can get in some formation flying, if you trust me not to get paint on your wingtip." Gary agreed, though they set no specific date.

  "I don't know that we've been much help, Gary," Linda said as they picked at the last of the strawberries. "It seems so long ago, and Steele Lowery wasn't really worth - the trouble," she said with a darted glance toward the girls. "Except to Little Andy, perhaps," she said with rueful amusement.

  "I wonder if you've heard from Andy Anderson since those days," Gary said.

  "Andy Anderson," she said, as if he had changed the subject, brightening with that sunburst smile Gary had seen in an old school annual. "His real name was Virgil. He was my guy for a while, my senior year in Briant, but I was stupid. Never mind. My mother and his kept in touch for a while, and I gather that Virgil set new standards at CalTech. Of course, that's his mother talking. But it might be true: he could play the class clown one second and stump the teacher the next. I don't know what ever happened to him, but I'll bet he didn't flunk out."

  Gary decided against telling her where an old beau had gone. Gavin just might not take kindly to that.

  He did have one more question to ask, and it was a corker.

  "About Andy: you say he was bright. And you say he might have had more reason to, um, shove his troubles into a hole than anyone else. Did he ever indicate that he had what it might take to do something like that? Think back."

  "Oh, good heavens, I don't need to think back," she replied, laughing. "What you saw was what you got with Virgil, and he was a star basketball player as well. He and Hoss played on the same team. They got along."

  "Even with that name, 'Candy Andy'?"

  She stared blankly at Gary for an instant. "Not Andrew. We're talking about Virgil - Andy Anderson."

  It was Gary's turn to stare. "There were two Andys," he said, detecting a cold lump in his guts that was not Butt
er Brickie.

  "I'll show you," she said, and left the room. She was back in a moment with a twin to the school annual he had copied in Briant High. "This," she said, "is Virgil - Andy Anderson. Was," she corrected. "He could be fat and bald by now. Wait." She flipped a few pages farther, to the smaller junior-class photos. She placed her finger triumphantly beneath a picture. "And this is Little Andy, the one Steele named 'Candy Andy.' Big difference."

  Gary read the brief legend. "Andrew Soriano," he said, very quietly.

  "Little Andy," Linda explained. "He was small and quiet, and too shy to be popular. But very sweet."

  He still is, Gary thought. It was the face of the same Andy Soriano who worked in the lab. And had access to the Thomas Concoction. And had ingratiated himself into Gary's apartment. "Look, I need to make a call to Bakersfield, and then I've got to be going. I'll pay for the call," he said to Gavin.

  "Don't be silly - it's practically a local call," Linda said.

  36

  JUNE 1994

  By late afternoon, his hangover had simply given up on Agent Newt Jessup. It was replaced by the memory of Hildreth's latest tirade still ringing in his ears after he had reported losing their man, and their car as well. He tooled the replacement Chevy to a stop shortly before 8:00 in the evening, blipping its engine impatiently while Wade Eckert stepped inside the Yomo tribal headquarters not far from the casino. "If they hate our paleface ways so much, why does their casino have a marquee like God's personal pinball machine?" Newt asked himself idly. Their backup still had not shown in Jessup's rearview but was expected momentarily.

  Each shadow on the reservation hillsides was stretching to extravagant lengths as Newt waited and wondered how Eckert was doing. You had to be careful how you stepped on tribal land, unless it was to throw money around in the casino. Sheriffs deputies seldom sought perps on the reservation because the law was very persnickety about that. Many tribes had their own ways, some of them fairly rough and ready, of handling their native-grown troublemakers or anybody else's. Federal agents had clearer access, but Eckert was checking in with the elders anyway. Besides, neither of the agents knew exactly where the hell they were going. Maybe the elders would know.