Memorial Day: A Mick Callahan Novel (The Mick Callahan Novels) Page 5

  "Then what's up?"

  "That nice little lady you saw me with this morning?"

  "Yeah?"

  "Well, she came over to listen to some music last night. We had a couple of beers and one thing led to another. We fell asleep. She didn't leave until this morning. I didn't plan on anything like that happening, you know?"

  "I believe you," I lied. "So?"

  "So she hangs out with a Cro-Magnon named Bobby Sewell and some other unfriendly locals."

  "I just made their acquaintance."

  "They seem to think that she's their property. Now, I really like her a lot, but I found out that Bobby plans on knocking the taste right out of my mouth."

  "Hence the urgency."

  "Yo, I'm overdue for a vacation from this dump anyway." False bravado, forced smile. "Nothing interesting ever happens around here."

  "What about that space-age junkyard you have in the back room?"

  "I locked it up. I decide to move permanently, I'll rent me a truck and come back." Jerry looked back like a man pursued by a posse. "When I can see her again."

  "I get it."

  "Come on, Mick," he said nervously. "I'm kind of in a hurry."

  He was a likeable kid. "Hop in," I said. "I can take you as far as Elko, but then I have to turn the car in and catch a puddle jumper."

  "Not inviting me to come along to Hollywood?"

  "You serious, kid? Well, if I get lucky, I guess I could poke around a bit. Maybe find you a gig."

  "Never mind. I'll settle for a couple of weeks in Elko, so I can come back for the girl. Besides, I got a couple of friends there who are already earning a living."

  I laughed. "You're relentless, you know that?"

  "It's probably in my genes."

  "Genes, or jeans?"

  We strapped the red scooter onto the top of the Ford, secured it with bicycle cords and twine. My smile was too thin by half, and I found myself making dumb little whistling noises and drumming my fingers on the dusty roof.

  "What up, dude?" Jerry asked. "You in a hurry, too?"

  "Maybe. Let's move."

  I spun the car around in the gravel and headed back down Main. Impulsively, I overshot to Station Street for one last look at the park. I was only half-aware of my motive. When I turned at the parking lot, I stared across the old railroad tracks at the cool, green grass. I couldn't help myself. I looked for her.

  Two seconds later, I hit the brakes. Jerry grabbed the dash to steady himself. I stared at the park. Something was wrong. The picnic tables seemed empty: food baskets, soft drinks, and miniature flags, but no people. Distant voices were muttering, like a mob in a grainy old film. I heard a high pitched scream from far away and felt my heart twist and sink. I knew I should drive on, told myself to leave, but that vital moment passed. I sighed and put the car into park.

  "Let's check this out."

  Jerry was gone, passenger door standing open. I don't know how I knew, but somehow I knew. I understood in a flash what I had only sensed moments earlier; why I'd been in a rush to leave town. I rested my head on the wheel for a moment, then undid the seat belt and got out of the car like a man facing a firing squad.

  Up north, about a half a block, a raggedy-assed wooden fence made a lazy V at one end of the park. The people were all gathered at that spot, milling around, some taking pictures with disposable cameras. Crowds change mood on a dime. The situation had gone from a boring rehearsal to true event. At first I didn't see anyone I knew except for Glen Bass. Then I saw a garish, tri-colored shirt and white hat: Doc Langdon. Jerry was already at the edge of the group when I arrived, peering down at the creek bed with the rest of them. I stayed back a ways.

  "Some drinking going on here?" Bass asked. Doc Langdon shrugged and wrinkled his nose.

  "They'll find out with an autopsy," Doc said. "What a goddamned shame."

  She was on her back in the shallow water; pretty dress pattern mixing well with the assorted twigs and flower petals. Her arms were floating gently with the current; striking blue eyes wide open and staring up at the sun. There was a wide pink swirl near the back of her head; so delicately placed it might have been a Zen painting.

  Someone had done real violence to her face.

  The left eye was spider-webbed with blood veins, bruised into blackness. Her pretty lower lip was split and smeared with blood. Flies were arriving. Sandy Palmer seemed surprised and excruciatingly young. She didn't look sexy anymore.

  A plump woman I didn't know began to cry. "Oh, the poor thing . . ."

  I felt my eyes sting with rage and grief. Something deep inside burst into flame and then blackened. I turned away, unnoticed by the others, and strode rapidly back towards the rental car. I started the engine.

  Jerry slid into the car, panting. He was pale. "What the hell are you doing?"

  "I'm leaving town."

  Jerry touched the wheel. "Not now! Goddamn it, man, did you see that? Did you see that poor girl lying there?"

  "I saw her."

  "What's the matter with you? You got ice in your veins or something? That girl was dead." He grabbed my arm.

  I took my foot off the gas. "Jerry, you'd best back the fuck down." My voice was low and hoarse. Jerry tried to make his body smaller against the car door. His hat tipped up, revealing angry scar tissue. His large sunglasses slipped off and fell into his lap. He was terrified.

  I turned the engine off. "Sorry."

  "We can't just leave," Jerry said. "Sandy called you on the air last night, remember? You called her Ophra, or something."

  Another long, slow breath. "Ophelia. I called her Ophelia."

  "She had a problem she didn't want to talk about over the radio. It was something bad about her boyfriend. Mick, somebody murdered her for that."

  "She's dead, Jerry. Who knows why?" I tried not to remember the man in the alley, naked with his hands tied behind his back. I pictured him anyway.

  Jerry clenched his fists. He fingered his scalp, came to a conclusion. "We could do the kind of thing you used to do. I can help you out. Let's investigate."

  "Jerry, don't be ridiculous."

  "I liked that girl, Mick. She was a nice person."

  "The answer is no," I said, a bit too forcefully. "Now, drop it. The law should handle things like this."

  "What law? Dry Wells has one burned-out cop. Give me a good reason we shouldn't poke around."

  "Okay, how about I'm pretty fucking rusty. You ought to know. You're the one who had to track my ass down and drag me out of hiding."

  "You used to go at people for a living, man. It'll come back."

  "Forget it, Jerry. Why the hell are you so hot to do this?"

  "Dude," Jerry pleaded, ignoring the question. "Please help me out."

  I weakened a bit, allowed myself to consider his idea. It seemed dumb. We'd be in way over our heads. Maybe if I hadn't seen that first body, trussed up like a turkey . . . but I had. And right now Dry Wells was looking like a very dangerous town. "No, Jerry. Let Bass and the Palmer family handle things."

  "It might be therapeutic, dude. And it would be just like the old days, when you were at the top of your game."

  "The old days? Back then I was too drunk to be cautious."

  "Help me," Jerry said. "I even know who killed her. There's not a doubt in my mind."

  "Oh?"

  "It was that prick Bobby Sewell," Jerry said, triumphantly.

  I whistled with mock admiration. "Oh, now I get it. And he just happens to be the same guy who wants to kick your ass over a girl. Hey, with that kind of impartial evidence you can't miss."

  "Then who did it, and why?"

  "Beats me," I sighed. "Oh come on, Jerry. How the hell should I know?" I didn't want to care, but now the anger was coming back; low and urgent like a sexual heat. "Listen, proving who did it won't be easy."

  "I want to try."

  "I'd like to help, but if I don't leave right now, I may not get that job in L.A."

  "So fuck it."

&n
bsp; I stared at him evenly. "This wouldn't be Jerry thinking he finally has his big chance to be a celebrity, would it?"

  Jerry shook his head. "Whoa. That was a cheap shot."

  "Level with me, here. There's no better reason for wanting to stick your neck out like this? Come on, kid. I want to hear you say it."

  Jerry studied his tennis shoes. He blushed and his scar darkened. "Skanky."

  "The girl. The one I saw you with this morning."

  Jerry, urgently: "Look, if I'm right and Bobby Sewell killed Sandy Palmer then Skanky is in a world of hurt. I don't want to leave her behind. Hell, I didn't really want to leave town in the first place, man. I need to see her again." He looked up with wet eyes. "Mick, you got to help me out here. Please."

  "Okay. Let me think for a minute." I lowered my head, massaged my temples. This is stupid, really stupid. Bass is going to lose it if you stick around. But when I examined my motives for refusing to help, I did not like them either. A few moments passed.

  "Can I ask you something, Mick?"

  "Sure."

  "What the hell happened to you?"

  It took me a long time to answer him. "Life happened."

  Maybe I could help him out. Maybe there was still time to make something good from a whole lot of bad mistakes. But the wild card was that dead man in the alley. How did his murder factor into this, if at all? My head was spinning.

  "So you won't help me. Wow, I looked up to you, dude." Fussing with the baseball cap again, wriggling the eyebrows. "You were my hero."

  "Jerry?"

  The kid unlocked the car door and got out. "I'm going to find out what happened on my own, then. If I can prove Bobby Sewell killed Sandy, I'll be able to help Skanky and all my problems will go to jail along with his hillbilly ass."

  "You're crazy, you know that."

  "I'll handle it." He began to walk away, but then froze when he heard me start the engine.

  "Jerry? Wait." He turned with a widening grin. I sighed and patted the seat. "Get in. Let's go somewhere and talk."

  Six

  Saturday Afternoon, 1: 15 PM

  Madge Wynn's parents opened the tiny diner before the Second World War, when Dry Wells was still thriving. They called it Margie's, after Madge Wynn's mother, now long deceased. Madge herself was in her late sixties. Her customers were drive-through tourists or aging friends who skipped meals at home to keep Margie's in business. Strong coffee, eggs, home fries, and gigantic pancakes were her specialty. The food was plain, but always good.

  Old Madge was back in the kitchen, her silver hair bobbing above the stove beyond the pass-through. Three empty cardboard boxes cluttered the hallway. A dry mop sat near a tipped-over, empty bucket. The lone waitress was a slender, pretty lady a few years shy of forty. She was the same woman who had studied me through the front window earlier. She had short brown hair, wide eyes, and the tanned face of someone accustomed to high desert sunshine. She tried to catch my eye as we ordered, but I was too preoccupied to notice.

  Jerry and I sat in a corner booth. The cheap wall clock flagged the passing seconds like a woodpecker. We ate our sandwiches in relative silence. Jerry ordered a bottle of beer. I drank cola.

  "This is so sad. I can't stop thinking about it."

  "Me neither." My anger was muted, more manageable, the rage channeled.

  "She was special, Mick."

  "They all are."

  "Huh?"

  "Jerry, I want you to do me a favor. Let's change the topic. I want to talk about something else."

  "Talk about what?" Jerry was puzzled.

  "In one of your E-mails, a few weeks ago, you told me about being a kid on the streets back in Arizona. It was funny stuff, and I found it interesting."

  "Mick," Jerry sighed, "what the fuck?"

  "I want to change the subject, clear our heads. It's a technique. You're from somewhere in Arizona, right? You ended up in a foster home?"

  "Yeah, a few of them. The last was a piss-ant burg called Rock Ridge," Jerry said. "It really sucked."

  "Go on." It was getting hot. I wiped my face with a forearm.

  Jerry slowly warmed to the subject. "Dude, it's ugly. People who need a few extra bucks sign up, take some dumb shit course, and figure they've got themselves a house slave."

  "What happened to your real parents?"

  "I don't know. I become successful, famous for something, then maybe they'll find me . . . if they're still alive." Jerry spilled some salt on the table and moved it around with his fingertips. "Or I guess I could go looking for them online."

  "You found me fast enough," I said.

  Jerry laughed. "I used to run away all the time, dude. The very last time, I got away from this old drunken fart named Boone and his fat wife. I hot-wired two of his cars, sold them off, and bought myself the scooter. I was sixteen years old, and I left and never looked back."

  "Revenge is sweet."

  "So is hot wiring cars, but I cut it out. Hey, pirating electronics is a step up for somebody like me."

  I stared out the window for a moment, then back. "Jerry, what happened to your face? Do you mind talking about it?"

  An enormous chasm opened and filled itself with a thick, syrupy silence. Jerry's left hand began to rise as if to touch the scar tissue, but he stopped himself. Eventually he answered me with the scratchy, broken voice of a little boy.

  "Mrs. Boone was ironing," he said. "I was doing the dishes. I accidentally broke a glass. When I turned around to say I was sorry, she grabbed my hair. Then she held the hot iron against my face."

  "Jesus Christ."

  "Jesus was nowhere to be found, my man."

  "How old are you now, Jerry, twenty-five?"

  "Twenty-three." He looked up as if something had just occurred to him. "You know what, Mick? You ask a lot of questions, but you don't answer many."

  I squirmed. "Force of habit."

  "Is that why you became a shrink?"

  "My stepfather used to make me fight other kids for money, Jerry."

  "Whoa. Damn."

  "My real father was a drunk. I guess I wanted to understand people like that, and why my mother married those men. I wanted to understand myself, because I kept drinking even though I knew better. I washed out of the Seals with a bad attitude, but then became a straight A student and licensed shrink. The shrink got radio and television work that made him rich and famous, then he lost it all. Same old story."

  The pretty waitress was cleaning up. Her pink blouse and the knees of her torn jeans were damp. She started wiping down the table next booth. She caught my eye and winked. Something tickled my memory. I smiled back at her, puzzled. Her smile grew wider. She said: "You boys need anything else?"

  "Not now, thanks." I still couldn't place her. The woman frowned and wandered away. "Now Jerry, look at me. Why would someone murder Sandy Palmer?"

  Jerry was caught off-guard. "Jesus, dude. She called you saying she had a serious problem with her boyfriend. That he was into something and she was scared. Now she's dead. Doesn't all that strike you as a little too coincidental?"

  "Of course. But we're not cops, and we don't have anything to go on, or real evidence suggesting who would have wanted her dead."

  "No? Let me enlighten you," Jerry said. "Take that big bastard of an ex-boyfriend Bobby Sewell. He's got to be the meanest redneck in four counties. Sandy dumped him a couple of weeks ago, and Sewell ain't used to losing. I say it was him, or maybe one of his asshole buddies did it so he'd have an alibi."

  "Maybe."

  "Mick, work with me. I liked Sandy, but never had the balls to ask her out. I hardly ever do stuff like that. I just got lucky with that girl Skanky last night. Look, nothing like that ever happens to me. Nada. You know that sign some people stick on their cars that says 'Just Married'? Well, mine is gonna say 'Just Friends.'"

  I laughed out loud, but Jerry looked dead serious. His eyes turned wet and shiny. "I really like this girl, Mick. Can you understand that?"

  "Sure,"
I said. "I understand."

  The moment vanished. "Anyway, back to Sandy Palmer. She was always cool. It made her stand out. I'd crack a joke and she would giggle. I might say good morning, she'd say it back. Pretty girls aren't usually that nice to geeks, especially with a face that's . . . anyway, Sandy was different."

  "Okay. Who else besides Bobby do we consider a suspect?"

  "Well then, there are the Palmers themselves," Jerry said, "or their enemies. The old man is really hated. Rumor has it he's terminally ill, but some say he fakes being in a wheelchair so folks will be nice to him."

  "What about the brother?"

  "Will? He's loco."

  I leaned forward on the table. Silverware clinked. Flies buzzed on the window. "Okay, let me feed this back. Her ex-boyfriend doesn't like you, so he's a suspect. So are all of his strange friends. Will Palmer and his father are garden-variety rich pricks so we add them, and likewise anyone who works for or with them. Also enemies of the family, which means half the county, and don't forget any strangers passing through, and every horny male that was unaccounted for. Have I left anything out?"

  "Well damn, if you put it that way."

  "If I put it that way, damned near everyone in or around Dry Wells could have killed Sandy. Jerry, let's take off for Elko. I can still catch a late plane."

  The waitress approached our booth. She was drying her hands and rubbing her clothes with a towel. "Sorry, I lost control of a hose there for a minute." She tried a little more eye contact. She was very pretty, so I smiled back. She let me know she liked it. "You boys done here?"

  "I guess so," I said. "What's the damage?"

  She handed me the check, still trying to hold my gaze. She chuckled uneasily, a bit surprised and perhaps hurt. "You really don't remember me, do you?"

  "I'm sorry," I said. "I know I should." Then my jaw dropped. "Son of a bitch! You're Annie?"

  She nodded and blushed, her jaw tight, as if she were upset that it had taken me so long.

  "Of course I remember you, sweetheart," I said. And some of what I was remembering embarrassed me. "No glasses?"

  "I wear contacts. My hair is a different color now, too. And it's shorter."