Somewhere along the way, Kat had become a hair stylist and owned a successful salon.
I handed her my card. “If you think of anything.”
Kat nodded and followed me to the porch. “Sorry if I was a bitch.”
Did she mean sorry if she was a bitch to me or to Dan Nodine? I turned toward her. “One more thing. Did Dan ever mention a guy by the last name of Sylvester?”
“I don’t believe so.”
“How about anyone with the first name Frank?”
“Well, there’s Frankie Jacoby, who helps out my brother at the feed store.”
“I know Frankie Jacoby. This is somebody else.”
“Then no.”
“You have my card.”
Kat tucked it in her pants pocket and nestled into the lambswool shawl. “I really do have to get to the salon, Maggie.”
I couldn’t figure out precisely what, but there was something off about Kat McKay, or at least her story. Since gut feelings weren’t considered evidence—except in TV cop shows—I concentrated on writing my report. In the end, my account of events leading up to the discovery of the murdered Nodines and the info obtained subsequently was drafted, proofed, edited, and finalized before the end of day, as promised. The entire sordid manifesto amounted to a paltry five pages and bore not one substantive clue as far as I could tell.
I shipped it off to Bach and called Jess Bennett’s cell number. I still hadn’t circled back around to prod for more information on her twin cousins, especially the visit they paid her a couple of weeks ago. I barely recognized the recorded mumbling voice asking me to leave a message. I countered with my best cop bravado, leaving a brusque summons to return my call. If Hollis had been here, he’d have been razzing me with all kinds of shit for talking tough to a citizen. And I would’ve pointed out that the last twenty-four hours had put me in a mood.
After Doc Gattis completed the autopsies, we agreed to meet for dinner at the Blue Mountain Lounge, two blocks from Sam Damon’s funeral home. I locked up the trooper station, drove home, fed Louie, and changed into civilian gear.
I found Ray seated in the far corner booth, and as I expected, she hadn’t waited for me to arrive before ordering a drink. Her specimen cooler and a chic leather duffel bag sat on the floor next to the worn vinyl-upholstered seat.
She looked up from her phone and tossed back her hair. “Maggie. I thought I’d been stood up.”
I gestured toward her duffel bag. “You’ve checked out already?”
“Thought I might talk you into taking me to the airport from here.”
“Sure. Sorry I’m late.”
“You clean up nice.”
I’d purposely put on my new boot-cut Levi’s and the silk blouse I’d bought in Boise a while back. Even applied a spot of lipstick.
“I released the bodies late this afternoon,” she said.
I slid into my side of the booth. “That’s probably a relief for the parents.”
“Sam said services were set for next Monday?” she asked.
I nodded and picked up the menu. Despite knowing there would be nothing new, or changed, or particularly enticing offered, I still scanned my options. Our server, a young woman the spitting image of Ariel Pritchett, stood over us at our table and smiled tentatively. Ray ordered another old-fashioned and the fried chicken dinner; I ordered a bottle of Bud Light and a cheeseburger, rare.
“Mind if I ask you a personal question?” Ray asked, observing our server as she drudge-marched back to the kitchen with our orders. “How the hell did you end up in this town?”
“Born and raised.”
“Well, that’s no excuse.”
We both laughed, and I began to feel the 9-1-1 for alcohol. God, was that a line from some bullshit country western song?
“I lived in Salem for a long time, where the worldview’s not quite as narrow. But how about you? How’d you get here?” I asked.
“You mean why do I spend my days flying to every ore deposit in this state to dissect dead bodies? I love central and eastern Oregon is one explanation, I guess. And I’m good at my job, if I say so myself.”
“I’m good at my job too. If I say so myself.”
“Oh, I believe it. But you seemed a little taken aback this morning when Al assigned you to the investigation,” she said.
“I was surprised, I guess. Truthfully, though, there’s no way I’d settle for not being involved. I found those men, and I want to find who killed them.”
“I definitely understand that instinct.”
Ray took a final swig of her first-round drink as her second round arrived. I briefly wondered if the booze might soon begin seeping from her pores, making it more difficult to convey the élan of wise physician, not to mention wiseass.
“Change of subject. Not to sound like your mother, Maggie, but you should be careful about ordering rare hamburger.”
“Nah. The BM Lounge serves only grass-fed, hormone-free beef raised right here in our county. Not much of a timber industry around here anymore, but good beef? That’s bank.”
“Well, I’m still skeptical.” She tipped back her second old-fashioned and drank slowly. “And the fucking bartender in this place should find a new line of work.”
“Liquor Luddite is the term my cocktail-snob ex-husband would’ve used,” I said.
“That’s a good one. I might have to borrow it.”
“He’ll never know.” I sipped my beer at a leisurely pace, to avoid treading the dangerous waters of personal history. “He lives in Portland.”
“The two of you don’t ever talk?”
I adjusted my collar. “Morgan and I talk pretty often. We’re still close friends.”
“I’ve never been married myself. Came close once, but it’s not for me. That’s nice you’re friends with your ex, though.”
“Well, the first one, anyway.” Shit.
Ray smiled. “You have a second ex-husband?”
“Yes, one I don’t like talking about.”
“Got it,” she said. “So let’s talk about the first one. If you’re such good friends, why get divorced?”
Why was she so nosy? Right, it had to be the bourbon. “Morgan divorced me. After he came to the realization he was gay.”
Finally Ray Gattis had no quip at her disposal, so it was time for me to turn the tables. “How about you? Are you involved with anyone?”
“I can’t decide.” She paused. “Are you?”
I shook my head.
“But you’ve been married and divorced twice? Morgan, the gay guy in Portland, and who else?”
“Just another state trooper. It ended a while ago.” I drank my light beer more assertively.
She peered across the table, her ardent blue eyes settling on their own piece of evidence. “Oh! It’s that little prick lieutenant, isn’t it? What’s his name? Jeremy Lake, right?”
I waved for our server to bring me another of the same. “How did you figure that out?” I wanted that goddamn beer pronto.
“I guessed, of course. But the tension between you two this morning was obvious. Kind of like an angry divorced couple.”
My second beer was delivered, and I ordered up coffee for the two of us.
“Isn’t it against some protocol, your ex being your boss?”
“Probably.” I had always dreaded the possibility of word spreading throughout the State cop community that I’d been married to that fool. Not because the news might affect my career. But the three or four people I gave a damn about would find out I’d once fallen that low.
“I’d like to drop the subject of second husbands, and I’d appreciate you not mentioning any of this to the detective. J.T.’s my supervisor, but he wasn’t when we were together. And he really has so little to do with my life now.”
“Other than making it miserable if he decides to.”
“Good point.”
“Not to worry, though. I won’t say anything, mostly because I don’t see a reason to. Besides, Al’s a man
who doesn’t always follow the rules himself. As you’ve probably figured out.”
I directed one of my blank stares across the dented Formica-topped table, which was met by her mischievous gaze.
She rested a lovely manicured hand over my chapped, nail-bitten left one. “Come on, Maggie. Surely you know how these things happen. Working death scenes with somebody, especially if it involves murder, tends to draw you together. Al and I have been trying to end it for months. Well, trying to keep it from going further is more like it. But we’re making a mess of it. I’m making a mess of it.”
I had definitely missed all of that. “He’s not up for getting a divorce?”
“No. Despite his willingness to flirt around the edges of something possibly more exotic than hearth and home, Al’s pretty committed to his beliefs,” she said. “To his wife too, I suppose.”
“What was that line from Dorothy Parker?” I asked.
“God, what was it?” Ray placed her drink on the table. “Oh, I know. ‘Men seldom make passes at girls who wear glasses’?”
“I’m pretty sure Parker said that too, but I was thinking of the one that’s a little more apropos: ‘You can’t teach an old dogma new tricks.’”
She tossed back her hair and laughed heartily. “Jesus fucking Christ. That is so true. Maggie, you’re the first person of real intelligence and wit I’ve met for some time.” Said in a manner that, alas, reflected the imbibing of two old-fashioneds rather than sincere admiration.
“Are you sure you’ll be okay flying back tonight?” I asked.
She swallowed down the last of her supposedly disgusting drink. “Yes, because you’re going to drive me to the airport and watch me board that little motherfucker of a plane. After I land, I’ll take a taxi home and fall asleep in my own bed.”
The Ariel Pritchett lookalike appeared with a tray carrying our supper and hastily placed the hot plates and coffee mugs on our table. Doc Gattis looked askance at my meal. And largely on account of the frozen entrées waiting at home, I lifted my lovely cheeseburger, cooked rare to perfection, and took my first bite. I took my chances. I always took my chances.
We ate quietly for several minutes. I knew I was famished, and I imagined Ray was too.
“This is delicious. You have to go to the country for good fried chicken,” she said.
“For good fried anything, if you ask me.”
“Maggie, there’s a guy over there who’s been staring the hell out of you. Got any idea what that’s about?” I started to turn, but Ray said, “Tall guy with reddish hair?”
“Well, that describes a few people around here. Besides, it’s probably you who’s being checked out. The locals always give strangers a serious once-over.”
“No, dear heart. He’s not checking me out. I’d say he’s pretty much ignoring everyone in the room but you.”
Then I remembered. A couple of nights ago, Duncan McKay had filed a theft report. “Does he look like a retired bull rider?”
“You’re blushing, for Christ’s sake. And I don’t know what a bull rider is supposed to look like, retired or otherwise.” Ray sipped her coffee and checked her watch. “We should probably leave in fifteen minutes or so.”
With no warning, Duncan appeared next to our corner booth, towering awkwardly above us. “Maggie,” he said, “sorry to bother you.”
“Oh. Hi. Um, this is Dr. Gattis.”
He nodded. “Duncan McKay.”
She shook his hand. “Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Duncan.”
“McKay,” he said.
“Sergeant Blackthorne and I were just finishing our meal before I fly back to Bend. Would you like to join us?”
“No, but thank you.” He turned toward me. “Heard on OPB the Nodine brothers were murdered. Sorry you had to be the one to find them.”
Ray eyed me over the rim of her coffee mug.
“Which means I haven’t had much of a chance to look into your theft report,” I said.
Duncan shrugged. “I guessed as much. The stuff will either turn up or it won’t. Anyway, I saw you over here and thought I’d say hello before taking off.”
I could feel myself blushing again.
“Nice to meet you, Dr. Gattis. I’ll see you around, Maggie.”
I grabbed the check and ordered a box for the rest of Ray’s supper, and the two of us watched Duncan pull out from the curb in his delivery truck. I wondered once again why Dorie hadn’t included him on her list of my prospects for romance.
Seated in the passenger seat of my Tahoe, Ray yawned and laughed to herself. “God knows I’m not an expert, not even remotely, but that Duncan guy seems like a good man.”
“He might be.”
She yawned again. “As someone said—I don’t think it was Dorothy Parker, though—‘A good man is hard to find, but a hard man is good to find.’”
Heading back from the airport, I mulled over the relationship between Ray Gattis and Al Bach. I wasn’t sure why she’d revealed something potentially ruinous to their careers. Maybe like me, the alcohol and friendly chatter had numbed her sense of circumspection, but I suspected she knew I could be trusted not to betray them. And she was right on that count.
I stopped at my office before heading home and checked email. I half expected to find some diatribe from J.T. Lake. Instead I’d received a message from Bach: “Good report. Let’s talk tomorrow. BTW, this a.m. at the murder scene, I stumbled on the truck keys. No other evidence, though. Also the team here in Bend found an unopened Hot Shot DXR 36 cattle prod in the lockbox of the Ram 3500.”
The mysterious missing keys and, in all likelihood, one of the prods stolen from McKay’s Feed and Tack. I sent a reply to the detective mentioning Duncan’s theft report and sat in my office wrestling with our homicide case. Tomorrow, I decided, we’d begin assembling a murder board.
I treated Louie with a kitty snack and pampered myself with a scoop of vanilla ice cream and chocolate syrup, all of it carted to my bed in the corner. I read another page of Libbey vs. Chase and placed it on my nightstand next to the one wedding shot of James Patrick Morgan and Margaret Belle Blackthorne. The photo had been taken in front of our little cottage in Salem. I adored it. My first ex-husband resembled a buck-toothed penguin, and I looked like a fringe-haired prom queen. So unlike the wry comedy team we’d imagined ourselves to be.
Reaching to click off my mother’s antique lamp, I opted to text Morgan instead. “What’s up?” I thumbed.
He lived in a condo in Portland these days and owned a vinyl records shop, JP Morgan Retro. That ironic business name still made me chuckle.
“Out w William,” he texted back.
“Who the hell is William?”
“Blab latr k.”
I considered typing “fuk u k” but deferred to my hatred of the asinine deletion of letters in texting’s bastardized form of communication. Kind of like removing connective tissue in one’s brain in order to think more efficiently. Avoiding the use of vowels and diphthongs got you to stupid about as fast as hacking away at your cerebral cortex.
My phone chimed as I turned off the light. One last message from Morgan: “Nighty night, old lady.” An inside joke from our married days, one that managed to leave me feeling a speck less testy and cantankerous about the world.
6
Morning, February 23
Louie was reluctant to set paw outside and take in his daily constitutional. I’d had to pry him from his dusty cat pillow and carry him to the damp landing and down the narrow steps, where he tracked gingerly through Dorie’s small patch of heather. He marked his territory unnecessarily and yowled to go back upstairs.
To make amends after his chilly gambol in the elements, I pulled him onto my lap and we sat together in my mother’s worn granny rocker. Patty Griffin sang in the background, her voice lovely, pure, tinged with melancholy. Finally I rose and gently placed Louie in his cat bed.
“Hope you understand, buddy. I’ve got a murderer to catch.”
I turned
up the heat a notch and set out extra food and water. Kneaded Louie’s head and neck the way he liked and listened to Patty’s “Florida” track play all the way through before heading out to work.
The small alcove where we ate lunch or took our breaks at an old card table would make a passable hub to gather and begin putting together our murder board. It was tucked in behind four tall filing cabinets and largely hidden from public view.
I tacked up a map of Grant County on our bulletin board, empty but for last year’s calendar and a few fluorescent health and safety notices. We were also outfitted with a chalkboard on which some kid had years ago drawn a house with square windows and lollipop-shaped trees in the yard.
After erasing the kid drawing, I stood on the vinyl-padded seat of a folding chair and wrote the names of the Nodine twins, along with the date and approximate time of their deaths at the top. Beneath that heading, I cordoned off three sections and labeled the first one Unknowns and the second one Lab Analysis. I labeled the last section Possibly Related Events and underneath listed off 2/20 anonymous poacher tip line call and Newer red Ram 3500 truck registered to Frank Sylvester, Burns. Under Unknowns, I wrote, Address of murder victims.
“Morning, Sarge.”
“Christ, Holly. I didn’t hear you come in.”
He palmed his eyes vigorously and yawned. “Yeah, I’m training to be light on my feet.”
“So you can sneak up on your boss?”
“No, that’s just a side benefit. It’s for Hank. Little dude wakes up at the slightest rustle.”
The man looked like shit.
I stepped off the chair. “What are you doing here, anyway? It’s Saturday. I’m covering this weekend, remember?”
He poured himself coffee and stood beside the card table. “I still need to tie up those loose ends.”
Hands on my hips, I considered the categories I’d arbitrarily selected. “I know I should have you put together a spreadsheet for this, but I like seeing everything laid out in front of me. Plus I wanted to get it started before Taylor gets back. He’d have us spend two days just designing the damn thing.”
Dead Point (Maggie Blackthorne Book 1) Page 7