The Quiet Streets of Winslow

by Judy Troy

  “That’s a serious answer,” my mother said.

  “Why put him on the spot like that, Julie?” my father said.

  “She wasn’t saying anything to me that wasn’t true,” Nate said.

  My father and Nate were facing each other. For the first time I noticed that the expression on Dad’s face around Nate was a lot like Nate’s expression around Dad: stubborn, almost angry, and at the same time sorry, like there was something they had done to each other that the rest of us didn’t know about.

  chapter twenty-seven

  SAM RUSH

  THE OWNER/BARTENDER OF PT’s, in Winslow, was a middle-aged, red-haired man with a poorly repaired cleft palate beneath a sparse moustache. He knew Jody Farnell. Said she used to come in three evenings or so a week. One young man or another, and some not so young, would buy her drinks, and she’d play pool when she was asked to. She had a talent for pool, the owner said, but never played for money, not that he had seen. He couldn’t recall any man in particular that she spent time with, except for Paul Bowman, occasionally, and Kevin Rainey.

  “Tell me about Kevin Rainey,” I said, and he said that he was a quiet, sandy-haired fellow, around thirty, of medium height, who did lawn work around town.

  “He comes in often enough. Has a few beers, puts money in the jukebox, doesn’t make trouble. He’s a bit of a loner.”

  “He lives here in Winslow?”

  “I believe he lives in Holbrook.”

  “How is it you know his name?” I said.

  “He did lawn work for my sister-in-law, back when she lived here. That was a few years ago now. She saw him going door to door with his lawn mower, asking for work, and felt sorry for him. You know, somebody trying to scrape together a living.”

  “She say anything else about him?”

  “Well, she started doing her own yard work. I remember that. She said he wanted to be friends, maybe more than friends. Flattering, I would think, since my sister’s fifty. But she told him not to come back anymore.”

  “Did he listen?”

  “More or less, I believe.”

  “What about this man?” I said, showing him a photograph of Nate Aspenall. “Have you ever seen him in here?”

  “No,” he said. “Doesn’t look familiar.”

  “How friendly was this Kevin Rainey with Jody? Did he pester her?”

  “Well, a lot of the men pestered her, if by that you mean stared at her, bought her drinks. He didn’t seem much different from the others. Quieter, maybe. He and Jody would talk a little, when he was in here. He would approach her. There was one time he wanted to buy her a drink and she said no. Just no. No reason given. He said, ‘Make her one, anyway, would you?’ And I did. It sat there all night, right on the bar where I left it.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  “A month or so ago, maybe.”

  “Did you ever see them talk after that?”

  “Once or twice, maybe.”

  “Did Jody ever say anything to you about him?” I said.

  He paused to serve a beer to a bald man in overalls.

  “Jody never said much to me about anything. But then my wife works here with me, and I’m careful about how much I talk to female customers, and they’re careful about how much they talk to me. I never had a real conversation with Jody. Neither did my wife, for that matter. We knew her. She was here a lot. But we didn’t know much about her. I don’t believe she had lived here that long.”

  “How often does Paul Bowman come in?” I asked.

  “You don’t suspect Paul Bowman of anything, do you? He’s not going to hurt anybody. He likes women too much.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  “I’ve known him a long time, not that I see him as often as I used to. His wife doesn’t like him drinking. But when he’s here he’s talking to whatever female happens to be here, including my wife. He’s got a soft heart, my wife says. One night, when he was drinking more than usual—I don’t let people get out-and-out drunk, Deputy Sheriff; I keep an eye on that—he told her that he had had an affair with somebody once, and that he would have divorced his wife if the woman had agreed to marry him. But she didn’t want a husband, or at least she didn’t want him. No name given,” the owner said. “No details. Just this sweet spot my wife develops for any man with a heart.”

  “It’s a surprise to women that we have them,” I said, and he laughed at that. I had ordered coffee, and he refilled my cup.

  “How well do you remember the night Jody was killed?” I said. “It was April 24, a Thursday.”

  “My wife and I tried to remember, after we heard. We both remembered Jody as having been here early in the evening, maybe seven or eight. Thursdays can get busy, people getting a head start on the weekend, but we were fairly sure she was here, though I couldn’t say when she left.”

  “What about Kevin Rainey? Do you remember if he was in here that night?”

  “He was. They might have talked a little. But they didn’t come in together. He came in earlier than she did. I remember because he drank more than usual, and I was keeping an eye on that.”

  “Anything else you recall about that night? Anything unusual?”

  “Somebody left their vehicle in the parking lot,” he said. “Although that wasn’t unusual. It happens all the time. People drink too much, and either they walk home or get a ride.”

  “Did you know who it belonged to?”

  “No. It was a station wagon that I’d seen there before, though.”

  “An older model, burgundy Buick?”

  “Well, it was burgundy. I noticed that much.”

  “When did it get picked up? Do you recall?”

  “Well, it was gone when I came in the next morning to open. That was at eleven.”

  “Has this Kevin Rainey been in since then?”

  “Now that you mention it, no. I don’t believe I’ve seen him.”

  “You know anybody who knows him? Knows where he lives?”

  “Aside from my sister, no,” he said. “Not really. As I said, he keeps to himself. You suspect Kevin Rainey? You think he was involved?”

  I smiled and said, “I suspect a lot of people. Pretty much everybody.”

  “Well, I feel terrible about what happened to Jody,” he said. “My wife and I both do. We miss her coming in. There was something kind of touching about her. You felt for her, without knowing why.”

  In the parking lot I checked on whether or not Kevin Rainey had a record. He did, as it turned out, albeit not an impressive one: a DUI and an assault that didn’t involve a female. What I couldn’t find for him was an address, a registered vehicle, nothing.

  I phoned Paul Bowman and asked him to meet me at Burger King, near the interstate, for a sandwich. I wanted to talk to him away from his wife.

  He pulled up to the restaurant when I did; we got our food, then sat at a window booth. He wore a tan shirt that was tight across his middle. His fleshy face looked uneasy.

  “I know that you frequent PT’s bar occasionally,” I said, “and that you’ve run into Jody there at least once. Was that by accident? Or did Jody ask you to come?”

  “It was just by accident,” Bowman said. “I saw her there two or three times, and we talked for a few minutes. How are you, are things okay with the house, that kind of thing. Nothing special. Nothing personal.”

  “How about on your side?” I said. “Any chance you went to PT’s hoping to see Jody?”

  “No chance,” he said. “I told you the truth about her. And I don’t spend much time there anymore. My wife doesn’t like me to. So I’ll run out for something at Walmart and stop at PT’s for a beer on the way back. If she thinks I’m gone too long, she’ll ask me, and I’ll tell her. If she doesn’t ask, I don’t tell.”

  “Did you ever see Kevin Rainey talking to Jody at PT’s?”

  “I don’t know a Kevin Rainey.”

  “Well, he’s around thirty, medium height, with light hair. Does yard work around
town, drives an old burgundy station wagon. The owner of PT’s said he comes into the bar now and again and used to talk to Jody.”

  “Well, there are always young guys in there,” Bowman said, “and I’d see them looking at her, but I don’t remember anybody fitting that description. I mean, nobody in particular.” He took a bite of his Whopper and looked down at his fries. “My wife would kill me if she knew I was eating this.”

  “So your wife doesn’t like you going to the bar because she doesn’t want you drinking? Or does it have to do with other women?”

  “Both. She can be jealous, like I told you.”

  “How jealous?” I said.

  “We were out of town when Jody was killed. You know that.”

  “Well, Jody felt threatened by somebody,” I said, “and I’m trying to establish who. Maybe your wife took to calling her, warning her to stay away from you.”

  “Mary liked Jody well enough,” he said, “and she knew Jody’s mother. You heard her say it yourself. She thought of Jody as a teenager, more or less, and so did I.”

  “But jealousy is a powerful emotion, and not just for men. In my years on the job I’ve seen plenty of examples.”

  “I bet you have,” Bowman said. “I’ve seen Mary jealous. But not over Jody Farnell, I can promise you. Jody Farnell was not the woman Mary was jealous of.”

  “Who was?”

  “A woman from a lifetime ago, and not from here.”

  “How jealous did Mary get?” I asked.

  “Enough to make me miserable, nobody else, Deputy Sheriff. It’s me she wanted to suffer.”

  “On another subject,” I said, “did Jody ever mention the town of Leupp to you?”

  “Not that I can recall.”

  “So no idea of her knowing somebody there, or having some kind of connection to it?”

  He shook his head. “Leupp is a tiny town on the Reservation, pronounced Loop, by the way. I never heard Jody mention it. As I told you, I didn’t know much about Jody’s personal business. I didn’t care to.” He drank his coffee and said, “For her sake I wish she’d never moved back to Winslow. For my sake I wish I’d never rented to her.”

  “I can understand that,” I said.

  WHEN I LEFT Winslow I took the route Nate Aspenall and Jody had driven the day before she died—north on Route 99, then west on I-5, which was an absolutely straight two-lane road that ran parallel to I-40. The town of Leupp was a shorter drive from Winslow than I had expected, and the town was small, as Paul Bowman had said, cut through the middle by the Colorado River. There was an elementary school, a boarding school, El Paso Natural Gas, Sunrise Airfield, a few businesses, and two churches, one of which was probably the location of the funeral Alice Weneka had mentioned attending. I wondered if it were possible Jody had had a relationship with any of Alice Weneka’s relatives in Leupp, back when Jody and Wes Giddens had had their baby, but even if she had, why keep up that relationship, when it seemed that the family had wanted so little to do with her?

  I also wondered about the map found in Jody’s car and whether it might have been designating a location in or near Leupp, and whether that was why Jody had wanted to drive there. But Alice Weneka knew Leupp and hadn’t recognized it. Unless she hadn’t been telling me the truth, but for what reason? I still didn’t have any evidence pointing to Wes Giddens, but on the other hand I had not located him yet, nor had the assistant deputy sheriff in Prescott I had asked to help with it.

  I drove out of Leupp toward Flagstaff, with a view of the Painted Desert to the north of me and ahead of me the San Francisco Peaks, and from there I took I-17 home. It was after dark when I arrived, and I stopped at the Rock Springs Café, hoping to see Audrey Birdsong, and I did. She brought me coffee.

  “It won’t keep you up?” she said.

  She wore jeans and a blue v-necked sweater, and her hair was in a braid down her back. Her eyes were bluer than I remembered, perhaps because of the sweater.

  “If I’m tired enough, I can always sleep,” I said.

  “I used to be that way when Carl was alive. But now it takes me forever to fall asleep. Too much on my mind, I guess.”

  “Memories, I imagine,” I said.

  “No. Not so much anymore.”

  I ordered the Mexican Combo Plate, and as I waited for it I watched her move around the restaurant. I was the only customer save for two bikers at a booth, and after they left she briefly sat down with me.

  “Are you still on Abbott Street?” she asked me, and I nodded. “I miss that neighborhood,” she said. “I live in an apartment on Old Black Canyon Highway now, across from the Dollar General. I miss seeing houses when I look out my window, you know, seeing families. But I can’t move back. I can’t pay the mortgage.”

  “I thought you sold your house,” I said.

  “I couldn’t afford to. We refinanced, when Carl got sick. We should have known better, but, well, we didn’t. I guess I’ve been lucky to find renters, although renters are a hassle. They come and go, and don’t give you notice. And there are always small problems with the house, so it’s like you’re on call all the time. I see why people hire somebody to look after things. I would, if I had the money.”

  “I guess it would be different if you had the skills.”

  “Even then,” she said.

  I paid the check, and she brought me change and walked outside with me. It was a warm night with a soft wind that caught the brown strands that had come loose from her braid.

  “This reminds me of the nights Carl and I went walking,” she said. “We used to wonder if we’d see you.”

  “Did you?” I said, and paused. “Both of you?” I asked.

  “Both of us.”

  “I don’t mean to be disrespectful to his memory,” I said. “You know that.”

  “Yes,” she said.

  We could see the headlights on the interstate from where we stood, and above them the stars that were emerging from the darkness.

  “I’m not grieving like I once did,” Audrey said. “You have to get over things.”

  I nodded. Conversing with women was not a skill I possessed. One reason I used to drink, to make an excuse for myself, was that it made me more comfortable around women. Not a lot more comfortable, but some. I had been a drinker when I met and married my wife—so much for comfort, in other words. I had better sense sober.

  “I’m in the middle of an investigation,” I said, “by which I mean I’m short on time right now, I’m just too busy, but when it’s over—”

  “I’d like that,” she said.

  I was getting into my SUV when my cell rang—Leslie Hoover, the assistant deputy sheriff who was looking into a few matters for me, including a verification of Mike Early’s alibi.

  “I haven’t found one, Sam,” she said. “But I spoke to Early’s brother-in-law and learned something the sister hadn’t told us. Mike Early got a call on his cell as they were having breakfast. That was about seven thirty. Said it was a guy who was supposed to work, that day, in place of Mike, saying he could only work until one. So Mike would have to head back. I told this to Bob McLaney, and he got us a warrant for Mike Early’s cell, and guess what? The call came from a pay phone in Holbrook. Now why would somebody Mike Early works with in Paradise Valley be in Holbrook?”

  I thanked her and thought about it and decided it was too late to question Mike Early by phone. Better to ask him in person, anyway, see his reaction as well as hear it.

  chapter twenty-eight

  NATE ASPENALL

  I DIDN’T WANT TO leave Winslow after I bought Jody the ring. I drove as far as Flagstaff and checked into a motel. I didn’t see any sense in driving to Chino Valley only to drive back the next day or the day after that if she said yes. And if she said no, what difference would it make where I was? It wouldn’t matter then. Not much would.

  My room had a double bed and a picture over the bed of a deer posed in a moonlit canyon. I was on the second floor, facing south, away from the moun
tains. Beneath the window was a Dumpster and beyond the Dumpster a stand of cottonwoods. If there was a creek beyond the trees, I couldn’t see it, although there was still light, a rose-colored stain left from the sunset.

  On my way to the motel I had picked up a pizza and a six-pack, and I sat up in bed with the TV on and the sound muted. I felt hopeful, and because of that I drank one beer after another and forgot to eat. Whether or not Jody would call and how soon or how late was in my mind, in spite of her having said she needed time to think. Maybe it wouldn’t take her much time. She had lived with me for months, and she knew I had a college education, which would enable me to find a better job, make more money, provide for her as I should. I imagined the house I would buy her someday—a two-story frame house, painted whatever color she wanted, with a nicely equipped kitchen where she would cook for us, or else I would learn to.

  I would have been satisfied with us living in the RV, but I wanted to make up for what she had lost in her childhood—a house and family, a sense of security. Maybe I wanted to make up for the family I had lost, too. I used to wonder if the holes and gaps in your life predicted your future.

  What I didn’t picture was Hannah or any children of our own. That should have been a hint as to how unreal that picture was, that daydream I was having, lying on a bed in a motel room, getting drunk, when fifty miles away Jody might have been . . . but I didn’t see that it was unreal. I suppose the alcohol got in the way, and the hopefulness. I had asked her to marry me, expecting her to say no, half expecting her to laugh. Instead she had looked at the coral ring as if it meant something to her that she couldn’t tell me about, something she had kept secret from me.

  She had gotten her hair cut in a stylish way, parted on the side and straight to her chin, much shorter than it used to be. She was wearing a green blouse and jeans and boots. The men in that small bar were looking at her, watching her as she walked down the hall to the restroom and back. They were envious of me. If I hadn’t been there, one would have come over and bought her a drink, sat and talked to her, hoped she’d go home with him. Wherever Jody went, men followed.