NINE
DENNY, SQUINTING AGAINST THE MORNING LIGHT, ANSWERED the phone beside the bed before he was fully conscious.
“Homer, you got to help me.”
Denny was pleased. Back home, no one ever asked him for help. But who was this? “What’s wrong?”
“I screwed the pooch!”
Was it someone who had already welcomed him back? It must have been, given the way he got down to business. But Denny didn’t recognize the voice. “It can’t be that bad.”
“It’s bad, big guy. You know my license is suspended, right? Sarah must of told you.”
“Right.” The speaker knows Sarah.
“June’s been ferrying me around. I don’t mind. Gives us a chance to talk, you know what I’m sayin’?”
“I know what you’re saying.” The speaker probably cohabits with a June.
“She’s a helluva woman.”
“Indeed she is.” June is a helluva woman.
“Only thing is, the other night she couldn’t drive me because of her Al-Anon meeting. Those are important to her, and I support her all the way and I don’t want nobody sayin’ otherwise.”
“Point taken.”
“Huh?”
“I agree. Yes. Right.”
“So, number one is I drove to town with a suspended license. But I had to. The Macalester boys been lookin’ over twelve acres down the hill where the ram pump was, and we been talkin’ about it off and on, but I didn’t hear from ’em for a long time, and I figured their interest in it went tits up. But then I get a call from Gary. They’re both at the Ethan Allen bar and they’re ready to deal. You only go around once, Homer. Got to grab the gusto. So I say I’ll be right down. After about a hour I find the keys to the truck—June hid ’em—and off I go. Damn, it felt good to be behind the wheel again. It was Katy bar the door—I flew down 14. I even stopped on the way to spin donuts on the north lot. Remember that?”
“How could I forget?”
“By the time I get to the bar, the Macalesters are out in front gettin’ in their truck to go home, so I leaned on the horn and skidded to a halt right behind ’em. I guess I scared Gary and kinda ticked him off even more than he was already because I was late, but I told him I ain’t never been a clockwatcher, it’s just the way I am. I sweet-talked ’em both back inside.”
“Did you close the deal?”
“Not really.” He sighed. “I was supposed to bring the survey with me—Gary wanted to see it—but thanks to June I spent so dang much time ransackin’ the house for my keys that it slipped my mind.”
“You could have all gone back to your place for the survey and closed the deal there.”
“Actually I lost the sonofabitch.” He made an angry, dismissive noise. “Surveys. Wienie with a tripod, takes an’ sticks a pipe in the ground, says, ‘That’ll be four hundred dollars, Sparky.’ I told him where he could stick his pipe. Almost did, anyway.”
“I’m sorry the deal didn’t happen, Sparky.”
“Yeah. So, um, let’s see.” He had lost track of his tale. “Okay, so I’ve got ’em both back in the bar, and I’m hopin’ they won’t bring up the survey, but a course Gary does. He’s sharp, you got to give the devil his due. Speakin’ of devils, Buns Balestreri was in there, and she’s checkin’ me out, and I’m sayin’ to myself, ‘Sparky, think of June. Think of June. Think of June with a pair of pruning sheers comin’ at ya.’ You know what I’m sayin’, Homer?”
“What happened then?” Denny had mastered the art of conversing with Sparky. You simply slapped him every twenty seconds.
“When Gary finds out I don’t have the survey, he storms out. Jimmy was in the toilet, and when he comes back to the table, I try to close the deal with him. Gary comes back and raises a ruckus, and before you know it, Betsy throws us all out. I been given the heave-ho by the best of ’em, but never by a blind lady, and I say that to Gary, but I don’t think he heard me. Buns did though. At least, I think she heard me . . .” Sparky, as if suddenly tiring of his own drift, snapped his next sentence out. “Long story short, we left the bar.” He paused. “I drove home.”
“Without incident?”
“Huh? Oh, yeah, no incidences. When I come in the house, June unloaded on me for drivin’. The whole time that she’s yellin’, I’m thinkin’ how I didn’t go near Buns Balestreri, and don’t that count for nothin’? I finally said it, too, but it didn’t help none.” He paused again.
“I don’t see how I can help you close that deal, Sparky.”
“That ain’t why I’m callin’. You know that shed I built outta scrap plywood?”
“How could I forget?” Sparky seemed to be triangulating to his theme.
“I keep the truck parked behind it, so it’s outta view from the house. Seein’ the rig just breaks my heart. So I’m out on top of the ledge above the shed tryin’ to smoke a porcupine outta the brush pile up there, cocksucker got my dog the other day, almost did, anyway. I couldn’t get the pile lit—it was wet, I didn’t have no diesel, just gas, and I’m getting nothin’ but whoomps from the fumes blowin’ up in my face. But that was kind of fun, at least until June starts yellin’ at me for the noise, and I look back to the house, and the truck is below me, sort of in my line of sight between me and the house.” Sparky took a deep breath. Denny sensed the pay-off was at hand.
“And then what happened?”
“Guess who I seen in the truck.”
“Who?”
“Marge Plongeur.”
Denny flinched. “Marge? Was she asleep? Was she drunk?”
“Hardly.”
“Does she live near you? Is there a rehab center nearby that she—”
“Homer, stay focused, man. She’s dead. She was layin’ there dead in the bed of my pickup.”
“Dead?”
“I’m starin’ down at her from the ledge, and it’s obvious from the way she’s arranged that she’s a goner, and I say to myself, no matter how you slice it, Sparky, this ain’t no feather in your cap. Meanwhile, June’s still yellin’ from the house. She gets that chant goin’ and it’s like a wild sound. It’s almost pleasant, like birds, and in wintertime you miss the birds—except for the chickadees, and I don’t want to take nothin’ away from them.”
“Marge,” Denny said softly, more to himself than to Sparky.
“Yeah. They’re sayin’ she fell from a balcony at the Ethan Allen. Now we know where she fell to. You know what’s funny? I seen her at the hotel that night.”
It took Denny a moment to process this. “You saw Marge?”
“She was in the lobby, headin’ for the hall to the elevator when I come in the door. She looks back at me and yells, ‘Hey, Sparky. I’m a winner.’ Ironic, ain’t it? I was probably the last person to see her alive.”
Not quite, Denny thought. He thought of the way she had poked him in the chest on her way into the bathroom.
“The thing is,” said Sparky, “the cops are gonna say, ‘Hey, Sparky, thanks for the call and all, but did your truck take an’ drive itself to town?’ Yuk yuk yuk and another fine on top a the thousands I already owe. They get you comin’ and goin’, Homer. I can’t hunt, not legally, anyways. Can’t fish. Can’t hardly open a can of soup. That’s where you come in.”
“You need me to say I drove you.”
“Oh, you’re quick.”
“And after your negotiations with the Macalesters, I drove you back home.”
“You’re cookin’.”
“I parked the truck at your house and left, both of us ignorant of our cargo.”
“I can’t hardly keep up! You’re like me tearin’ down 14!”
“The story is flawed.”
“Huh?”
“I wasn’t in the bar, so I must have sat in the pickup the whole time.”
“Yeah? So?”
“Marge would have made a huge noise when she landed. It would have rocked the truck. Why didn’t I notice that?”
Denny heard an intake of breath. “Dan
g. Good thinkin’. That could come up. Let’s see. You must of got out and left the truck for a while. I know, we’ll use ol’ reliable—you had to take a leak.”
“Where would I have done that?”
“Between the two dumpsters in the back lot of the hotel.” Sparky spoke like a frequent habitué.
Denny said, “And I didn’t see her body when I came back to the truck, and neither did you. That’s plausible.”
“Plausible? Hell, man, it happened. At least to me. I didn’t see her.”
Denny had to overcome momentary disorientation from hearing this intelligent, relevant remark. “Why did we take your truck and not my car? If I drove to your place to pick you up, why did we switch vehicles?”
“Because the truck needs a spin now and then to stay in shape. True fact.”
The story hung together. The police would examine Marge, note the alcohol in her system, and find no evidence of foul play. Denny would cease to be a suspect, and Lance would stop looking for him.
Sparky took a deep breath and let it out. “You and me, Homer.”
“That’s right,” said Denny. “And Marge.”
Sparky fell into a long silence. Finally, he said, “Is that fuckin’ Nick on the case?” Denny had expected different words—some comment on the loss dealt to the community by Marge’s passing. But Sparky’s orbit was a narrow one.
“Yes, he is.”
“He ain’t no friend of mine.”
Denny said nothing.
“He’s a friend of yours, Homer.”
“That’s right.”
“There’s no tellin’ what I might say if he gets under my skin. I speak my mind, that’s just how the good Lord made me and a tiger can’t change his spots. I’m thinkin’ it’d help if you was here when they give me the third degree. You’d make me legit.”
Denny thought about this. He and Sparky were certainly less likely to give contradictory stories if they were together when questions were asked. “I can do that.”
“Come on over. I’ll call the coppers.” With that Sparky was gone.
Denny let out a yelp of panic. He had no idea where Sparky lived. Even if he had thought to ask, he couldn’t have because Homer wouldn’t have needed to. Was there some way he could call him back and tease his address out of him? He could ask if the nearest cross street was still under repair and pretend to have forgotten its name—just inquire idly about it, as in “What’s the name of that street again?” Surely such a fabrication could slip past the gatekeepers of Sparky’s mind, which seemed chaotic. And once Denny was in the neighborhood, he could ask some helpful neighbor for final directions. He would call Sparky back. But when he pressed the button to show the number of the most recent caller, the ID window read only “Private Caller”—words as unhelpful as they were inaccurate in their implied primness.
Sparky. It couldn’t be a first name—who names a child Sparky? Denny found a phone book in Homer’s computer desk and searched it. No such surname appeared, but where it would have been, four “Sparks” listings suggested a basis for the nickname. But which Sparks? The four addresses were equally meaningless to him. Sparky had said that he “flew down 14” when he drove to the hotel. Highway 14?
Denny threw a coat over his pajamas and hurried out to the Rambler in front of the house. In the glove compartment he found a county map. He hurried back inside, spread the map on the dining room table, and located the four streets listed in the phone book. Highway 14 was a likely route to town for only one of the addresses.
The rural roads through farms and countryside were eccentrically marked. The few street signs that Denny saw faced him instead of paralleling his route in the normal fashion, as if some Yankee prankster had rotated them ninety degrees. But the mud was the worst part. For no apparent reason, a stretch of reasonably hard road would give way to chocolate pudding floating on frozen earth, and the car would careen wildly. Elsewhere, the road had thawed and refrozen into harsh shapes, and Denny would find his wheels drawn into ruts that looked harmless on entry but then deepened until he was up to his axle, with the rut holding the tire in place as if another pair of hands had seized his steering wheel. For one who loved speed, the mud was as bad as snow.
He kept thinking of Marge and that poke in the chest. He felt it now as an accusing finger. However she had died, Marge would almost certainly be alive if her path hadn’t crossed Denny’s. But one could just as easily blame Betsy for putting Denny in Mort’s room. Or Mort for going home to Brandon. Or the voters of Brandon for electing Mort to the legislature. He implicated more and more people, stopping short of Ethan Allen and his Green Mountain Boys—whoever they were—only because he reached his destination.
The address was hand-lettered on a mailbox that had lost its own means of support and leaned against a tree. Next to it, at the bottom of a driveway, a big rusted car faced the road. Its hood was propped open by a piece of plywood on which was painted “BOO.” Denny took the sign for a Halloween relic, but a second look showed that the “B” was an ill-drawn “8.” The sign gave the asking price for the car: 800 dollars.
Sparky’s driveway was steep, and gurgling snow runoff was churning its surface into canals. The approach went on for some distance, committing Denny to what lay at its conclusion. If he found an irrelevant homeowner—if the nickname derived from, say, Sparky’s electrifying personality instead of from a Sparks surname—Denny would turn the car around, drive home, and make up an excuse when Sparky called to ask where he was. But then he saw Nick’s unmarked police car next to the house. The driveway extended beyond the house, and farther along it stood a threesome—Nick, Lance, and a man with a hunched, furtive posture. Farther still, Denny saw a brown shed and, behind it, the back bumper of the fateful pickup.
Denny parked behind Nick’s car, got out, and headed for the trio. He passed the house—rambling with add-ons, patched with planks, half painted in several colors, and decorated around one window with a trim of old hubcaps nailed to the wall. A door from the second story led to the open air—an exit for casting out mutineers, perhaps. Inside, a dog with a deep voice stopped barking only to take a breath.
Lance took in Denny’s arrival with a dismissive glance. Nick looked at him more quizzically. “Homer,” he said in a funny tone that expressed both greeting and surprise. Sparky was older than Denny had expected, probably in his fifties, though Denny found it hard to focus on his face because of his garb. He was clad in black leather—a cap that tightly hugged his skull, a black jacket half zipped up and exposing a bare upper chest, and chaps or leggings over his jeans, with a strange window in front that presented the bulge of his blue-jeaned crotch like a swordsman’s codpiece.
Sparky said to Denny, “I’m unloadin’ my inventory, bud. You see my Merc at the bottom of the driveway? I’ll cut you a deal on it.” He whirled fast to Nick. “Don’t you be givin’ me the fish eye now. My pond-dumpin’ days are over. I haven’t been up to Prescott in years. You know what the fine is now if they find a wreck on the ice? No sir, I’ve got a whole new system.” He turned to Denny. “I was just explainin’ it to Nick and uh . . .” Sparky looked to Lance for help, but Lance just stared at him, and Nick had to supply the name. Denny looked forward to being in a group where Lance’s contempt was directed at someone other than himself.
“Like I was sayin’ to these boys,” Sparky went on, easily regaining momentum, “I got me a three-legged economic stool: one is commerce, like the Merc. The second is storage pending an uptick in demand.” He waved an arm, and Nick and Denny, but not Lance, took advantage of the invitation to look at the surrounding castoffs emerging from the snow. Various modes of transportation were represented—automotive (four wrecks within view), nautical (a rusty pontoon boat with a caved-in canvas roof), and aeronautical (a helicopter bubble, but only the bubble). Denny wondered what else lay beneath the uneven remaining snow.
“The third is what I call reutilization. For starters, I’m gonna make a giant bird feeder out of that wicker in
the dooryard.”
“What about Marge’s body?” said Nick.
“I ain’t thought of a use for it right off.” Whatever minimal success this witticism might have had was immediately undercut by Sparky’s self-congratulation and post-joke commentary: “You walked right into that one, Detective. You shoulda seen it comin’. You got to get up early to—”
“Show us Marge.” Lance snarled the sentence.
With stunning flexibility, Sparky switched from backyard raconteur to undertaker. He found a solemn expression in his repertoire and, bending over in some imagined universal gesture of respect, extended his arm up the driveway. He maintained that posture and continued to face the group when they cleared the shed, as if it honored Marge in some way not to look at her.
Denny braced himself and turned to the pickup. But there was nothing to see. There was only Sparky’s truck, vomit yellow in color.
“What the hell, Sparky?” said Nick.
“It’s a shocker, that’s for sure,” Sparky said as he turned to the truck. “Imagine my surp—” He stared, mouth open. “She must of slumped down.” He hurried forward and leaned over the tailgate, then looked all over the bed, as if a miniature Marge might have scurried under a scrap of lumber. The others stepped up to the truck.
“Tell us again what you saw,” said Nick.
“I saw Marge. She was right here, I’m tellin’ you. She was lyin’ tits up.” Sparky looked from Nick to Lance, who was studying the truck’s body one square inch at a time.
“You saw Marge,” Nick said. “And you’re sure she was dead.”
The implied alternative was a two-by-four to Sparky’s skull. He staggered back a step. “There ain’t no way—”
“Did you examine the body? Did you touch her?”
Sparky hung fire. Denny guessed he wanted to give the answer least likely to produce a rebuke, but he couldn’t figure out what it was. Lance began to circle the truck.
From Away Page 9