The Deader the Better

by G. M. Ford

“His mother?”

  “Picked your car out of the parking lot and you out of a lineup.”

  I recalled the sound of the dishwater slapping onto the ground and the moment of eye contact before she turned for the house.

  “Said she knew it was after three, because Ricki Lake had already started.”

  And the satellite dish by the side of the house.

  “You’re not allowed to leave the state,” Jed said.

  “Wouldn’t dream of it.”

  We shook hands and then hugged. “What now?” he asked.

  “I’m going to see an old man about a dog.”

  35

  “LANDED AT NORMANDY BEACH, YOU KNOW.”

  “Really.”

  “Was with Waverly Wray at Sainte-Mère-Église. Stopped the whole damn German Army, we did.” He pinned me with his milky eyes, as if daring me to dispute his claim. “Stopped’em cold. Turned the whole damn tide, right there.”

  Ben Bendixon was as bald as an egg. The dome shiny and freckled here and there with liver spots. He wore a white plastic transmitter on a left ankle so thin I was pretty sure he could pull his foot out of the thing if he chose. Must be how the cops kept track of his home imprisonment. “Fought the krauts building to building. Tanks’d blow a hole in the garden walls and we’d move from one to another.”

  I promised the granddaughter I wouldn’t mention the accident. Seems he’d gotten shitfaced, run a stop sign and Tboned a woman from Vancouver, BC, who was down in the States visiting her sister. She’d lost a leg. Ben lost everything else. His insurance, his license, his freedom, and, according to his granddaughter, most of his will to live. She said he hadn’t done much in the past eight months but sit upstairs in his room and rock and stare out the window. The way she figured it, if he was physically capable of killing himself, he would. But he wasn’t, so she let him sit and rock and stare.

  “Fought ’em over the rooftops and alleys.” He gave a toothless grin. “Stayed in the same cellars at night sometimes.

  Too damn cold to be fightin’ at night. They stayed on their side. We stayed on ours. In the morning, it was back to the war.”

  “I wanted to ask you about J.D. Springer,” I said. He shook his head. “He wasn’t there. Didn’t serve with no Springer.”

  Before I could respond, the old man continued. “You don’t forget the guys you served with. No sir. Ain’t nothing in the rest of your life as real as those guys.”

  His ancient eyes again dared me to disagree. “The guys you fought with…hell, you cain’t never trust nobody like that again.”

  “Yes sir,” I tried.

  “Ain’t no sir. No spit and polish. Just a rifle grunt.”

  “I meant the young guy you sold the homestead to.”

  He slapped his knees with his leathery palms. “The Springer boy,” he said. “Hell of a fisherman, that boy. Knew his damn rivers.”

  We’d gotten this far a couple of times before. Right up to the point where he remembered who J.D. was…and then he’d go fishing in his own river, back fifty years to the beaches and hedgerows of France, and I’d have to start over.

  “He’s dead,” I said this time.

  He slapped his knees again. “Hell, they’re mostly all dead now. Those that ain’t just waiting for their time to come.”

  “The fisherman’s dead,” I tried.

  For the first time since I’d entered the room, he stopped rocking. Behind the cataracts, I imagined his eyes rolling like a slot machine. Unless I was mistaken, we were about to make another extended foray into the past.

  “Shot him down just the way they shot your dog,” I said quickly.

  He rocked harder now. Chewing his gums and picking at his pants with his long yellow fingernails. “My fault,” he said.

  “Shoulda just let the sons a bitches kill me.”

  “Who?”

  “That Hand fella.”

  “Why would he do a thing like that?”

  “Wouldn’t sell out. Said if’n I give it to my grandkids, they’d come and get them, too.” A tear ran down his stubbled cheek. Then another. “Kilt my dog just to make his point,”

  he said. He wiped at the tear but missed.

  “So you sold out to J.D.”

  “Be damned if those sons a bitches was gonna get my place.”

  “They won’t,” I assured him.

  He took a shuddering breath and seemed to calm himself.

  “Seemed damn strange. Tryin’ to kill each other all day and then trying to keep each other warm all night, so’s we could go at it again in the morning.”

  36

  I RECEIVED A SITTING OVATION. CARL, ROBBY, FLOYD, Boris, Kurtis and Narva all packed into the RV. All monitors off but one. Watching Oprah. The incessant rain pounding on the metal roof. Carl read my mind. “Nobody home at City Hall,” he said. “We’re running on sound activation.” I turned my attention to Narva.

  “I thought you had a class,” I said.

  She showed both palms. “Could I miss this?” she said.

  “Besides, they took a vote and said I could be a criminal, too.”

  “Democracy een action,” Boris said.

  Floyd shook his head. Made a buzzer sound. “En- nnnggg…Language barrier,” he said. “We voted that she was criminal, not that she could be a criminal.”

  “What I do is illegal,” she protested.

  “If it ain’t,” Carl growled, “it oughta be.” He put a hand on top of his head. “You oughta see what she did to Tressman.”

  “Got some great stuff since you been gone,” Robby said.

  “We ready for thermonuclear destruction?” I said hopefully.

  “Fuck no,” said Robby. He looked over at Narva. “Excuse my French.”

  She waved him off. “It’s a verb I’m familiar with,” she assured him. “What’s the holdup?”

  “Your girlfriend won’t get lost. She’s been camped out in the Chamber of Commerce office since ten this morning.”

  “Who, by the way,” Narva said, “I saw at the courthouse yesterday afternoon.” She whistled, shook her right hand like a chimp. “A looker…for a woman of her advanced age, that is.”

  “What advanced age is that?” I demanded. She smiled and said, “Never mind.”

  “Miss Haynes is making her promo tape for next week,” I said.

  “I need daylight,” Robby said. “It’s not flashlight work and Kurtis says the place has nothing to cover the windows.”

  “No curtains, no shades, no nothing,” Kurtis said.

  “You gotta get her the hell out of there,” Carl said.

  “And keep her out of there for a couple of hours,” said Robby.

  “Either that or we wait till tomorrow, and I’ve spent about as much time in this shithole as I’m gonna,” Carl said.

  “You’re right,” I said. “We’ve worn out our welcome.”

  “Shouldn’t be hard,” Floyd said. “That girl’s got a bigtime hard-on for our boy Leo here.” He looked over at Narva. “I mean, like, you know…figuratively, rather than, like…you know…anything…”

  “You were right the first time,” she said. “Haven’t you ever looked at the…,” she began, then stopped. “Is he blushing?”

  she asked. “He’s blushing, isn’t he?”

  “Either that or he’s been boiled,” offered Kurtis. Much to his displeasure, we all agreed that Floyd was indeed a tad more rubicund than normal. “Hot in here,” he mumbled as he stepped out into the thundering rain. I wagged a finger at Narva. A girlish laugh escaped her throat.

  “I’m always amazed about how men can be so totally fixated over something about which they generally know so little.” She giggled again. Kurtis joined in. Boris opted for the typhoon, closing the door behind himself. I did the only sane thing and changed the subject. “What did you find in the records?”

  She pulled her planner from her purse, walked her long fingernails to the back of the book. “Like you figured, Gretchen Peabody of the hundred and
sixty-five acres is none other than the late mother-in-law of our late friend Polster.”

  “The mayor’s not involved in the scam,” Carl said.

  “Really?”

  Carl nodded. “Tressman, Weston and Polster call each other every five minutes, but nobody calls Her Honor.”

  Robby dialed the phone. “Is this Alice?…Oh…oh…I’m sorry.” Hung up.

  “She’s still at the office,” he said to me.

  “Do your stuff,” Carl said.

  “I have a nice collection of latex condoms,” Narva offered. Robby growled. “Sic ’em tiger,” he said.

  “Some in lovely pastel colors.”

  “How much time do you need?” Robby asked.

  “Something with studs?” she persisted.

  “Two hours minimum.”

  Narva held up a hand. “Careful, now. Don’t put that kind of pressure on him.”

  37

  THE EXPRESSION ON RAMONA HAYNES’S FACE REMINDED me of how the other cartoon characters look at the moment when they realize Casper is a ghost. She stopped in her tracks and then reached out and put one hand on the doorframe.

  “What in hell…?”

  “I’m like the bad penny,” I said.

  “But…,” she sputtered “they said you’d been…”

  “I was, but it didn’t stick.” I read her the Reader’s Digest version.

  “Two murders in as many months. I mean, this just doesn’t happen around here…maybe in…” She moved the hand to her throat. “Kind of makes that mush I was pedaling about small-town life sound ridiculous, doesn’t it?”

  A bit too much color had returned to her cheeks. Her chin was pink.

  “Not really,” I said. “That scene at the supermarket the other day would never happen in Seattle. Most people wouldn’t want to get involved. They’d be afraid of getting sued or shot or something.”

  She walked out into the outer office and leaned her elbows on the counter. “What is going on around here?” she said. I winked. “Don’t worry. Unless I’m sadly mistaken, we’re about to find out.”

  Her forehead wrinkled. She straightened up. “What makes you say that?”

  “Oh…just a premonition,” I said in my best conspiratorial tone.

  “Come on,” she snapped. “Don’t be so damn mysterious.”

  “Us detectives are like that.”

  She waved a hand at me. “You’re just blowing smoke.”

  I grinned for all I was worth. “Whatever you say.”

  She hated it. I had her going I could tell. So I jumped in.

  “If you let me take you up on that invitation for dinner,” I said, “maybe you could worm it out of me.”

  She looked me over. “So…you’ll sing for your supper, will you?”

  “The cuisine at the Peninsula County Jail left a great deal to be desired.”

  She laughed. “I’ll bet,” she said.

  “I decided that ‘previously eaten’ was the best description of the fare.”

  She pulled the corners of her mouth down. “That’s awful.”

  “How’s about it?” I said.

  She stuck her hands in the back pockets of her jeans.

  “Worm it out of you, huh?”

  “An unfortunate turn of phrase,” I said.

  “Let me finish up here. You can follow me.”

  She swirled the remaining wine in her glass. “It’s what happens when people get desperate,” she said. “They can’t see any further than tomorrow.”

  “But,” I countered, “it shouldn’t have been a surprise. For as long as I can remember, the world has been telling the timber industry that the party was about to be over.” I’d had a bit too much merlot and was babbling. “I mean…the rise of the environmental movement alone should have told them…”

  “It’s not just an industry. That’s what outsiders don’t get. It’s an entire way of life. In my high school class, there were a hundred forty kids. Know how many of them went off to college?”

  “How many?”

  “Eight.” She let it sink in. “Because they’re backward? Stupid?”

  “Don’t forget inbred,” I suggested.

  She sneered at me. “Because the rest of them knew where their lives were going. They knew who they were going to marry and who they were going to work for. And what area of town they wanted to build a house in when the time came.”

  “Sounds absolutely terrifying,” I said.

  She got to her feet and began to clear dishes from the table. I joined in, and in two trips we managed to get everything into the dishwasher. I was leaning back against the kitchen counter. Ramona was wiping her hands with a black-andwhite-striped dish towel. She rested her hip on mine as she draped the towel over the faucet. Outside, the wind had something squeaking. Slanting rain hammered directly on the windows. She stepped in between my feet and looked up at me. I could see the faint hair on her cheeks and smell scented soap.

  “So…what’s this big secret you’re harboring?”

  I tried to look offended. “Is that all you think of me? You think a great steak dinner and a couple of bottles of good wine will loosen my tongue?”

  She reached around me and pulled the chain on the overhead light.

  “I had something else in mind for your tongue,” she said, sliding her arms around my neck, pulling me down toward her face and the smell of flowers.

  38

  KURTIS SIPPED COFFEE FROM A WHITE MUG. “THIS thing with the cameras is creepy,” he said. “There’s something about watching people who don’t know they’re being watched…”

  He waved a hand. “I don’t know. It’s weird.”

  Boris added what I thought to be a particularly Russian idea. “Vat eef de people doing de surveilling are also under surveillance?”

  “Stop it,” Narva said.

  “Lotta tape,” said Robby.

  “You have no idea,” said Carl with an evil grin. “Every tanning parlor, every locker room, dressing room, bathroom. Every bridal suite in every hotel…hell, they’re all wired. Have been for years.”

  Narva looked at Robby. “He’s kidding, right? Tell me he’s kidding.”

  “If that’s what you want to hear, I’ll tell you,” he said.

  “Nooooooooo,” said Kurtis. “You can’t be—“Countdown,” Robby said above the conversation. “Ten, nine, eight…”

  Carl reached up and switched on a monitor.

  “…three, two, one.”

  Chanel Fourteen. Stevens Falls TV. Time: seven A.M. The date. A community calendar began to scroll by. What had begun the morning as thick mist now pounded the metal roof of the RV.

  “We didn’t start right off with the good stuff,” Carl said.

  “A little of them, a little of us,” Robby added.

  “The shit hits the fan in four minutes,” Carl said.

  “Everybody ready to roll?” I asked. They said they were. I’d already paid everybody but Carl. “What about you?”

  Floyd asked.

  “I’m gonna take a quick swing by the homestead and then head out.”

  “I’m staying with you. Boris can take the car,” said Floyd. I started to argue, but he wasn’t having any of it. “Everybody in this crew did what they signed on to do. Am I right? I signed on to get your ass back to Seattle in one piece, so I hope you don’t mind if I earn my money.” When he put it that way…On the screen, Redwood Farm and Garden, for all your landscaping needs. Family owned and operated for fifty-three years. The whole Brady clan smiling into the camera.

  “You find the switch?” I asked Robby.

  “Big as life. We’re broadcasting all over the peninsula.”

  “Here it comes,” said Carl. “You seen this one before.”

  MONDAY 8: A.M.

  CAMERA 1—TRESSMANThe lower half of Nathan Hand paced in and out of camera range. “I don’t like it,” he said. Mark Tressman sat at his desk and began rolling a paper clip around in his fingers. “It’s just a burglary.”
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  “You haven’t been up on the roof.”

  “Don’t start any conspiracy theory with me,” Tressman said.

  “No conspiracy. It’s that Waterman and those hardcases he’s got out there with him. I think they’re trying to queer the deal.”

  “He admits as much. So what? He’s got nothing. And there’s nothing in this building that would advance his cause in any way. If I was going to worry about anybody, I’d be more inclined to worry about Loomis.”

  Hand leaned down and put both hands on the desk. “I don’t get it. Loomis wants the deal to go through as bad as we do.”

  “Maybe they’re getting nervous. Maybe they’re checking up on us. We blew it once before. Maybe they don’t trust us to get it done.”

  Eight-fifty-four A.M. Another voice. June the receptionist.

  “Is Sheriff Hand back there?”

  “Be right out,” Hand called.

  “Ten days,” Tressman intoned. “Just ten days.”

  Dewitt Davis of the Davis Funeral Home, looking somber, as a mortician should. Recommending the Purple Cross program so your loved ones won’t be burdened with the bother of giving you a decent burial.

  The next insertion was a split screen. Tressman on the left, Weston on the right.

  “How cool,” Narva said.

  TUESDAY 9:03 A.M.

  On the screen, Nancy Weston looked older than I recalled.

  “He’s out of control, Mark. You know he had an accident. Hit some man out in front of the Country Corner.”

  “I heard.”

  “Something has to be done.”

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  She put a hand to her throat: her voice rose. “What it means is that I’ve spent some of my prime years here. Doing my end. Putting this together.”

  “As have we all,” Tressman said.

  “Which is why something has to be done. I’m not getting stuck here, Mark. Loomis is my ticket out of here and I’m taking it.”

  On one side of the screen, Nancy Weston banged the phone down hard. On the other, Mark Tressman winced, depressed the button and dialed. Robby zoomed the camera in. Last four numbers were .

  MONDAY : A.M.