by Lee Baldwin
“We all cool?”
Rayne looks at me. “No were not all cool. I want to know what’s going on. Ever since Thursday I see Tharcia, all she can talk about is Clay this Clay that. Then Friday I see her, all she can talk about is Stuka, Stuka, Stuka. Who are you and where you coming from? You’re on probation? What did you do? Who the hell are you?”
She says this last part all desperate, like she’s ready to cry. I turn around and look at the two of them. I am strangely gratified that Montana’s daughter mentioned me to her friend. Tharcia is somber, worried, looking at Rayne.
Ah-hah. Something here I didn’t see before, the picture about them.
“I get it. You guys are together.”
Both of them nod, looking from me to each other. Tharcia gives me a grateful smile, looks over at Rayne, reaches for her hand. “We are,” she says. “Aren’t we?”
“You fucking well better believe it,” Rayne says hotly, tossing a challenging look my way. Another tumbler ticks into place. She’s jealous.
“And you, Tharcia, you. Now I find out you slept here last night. And the way you touch him.” She shoots Tharcia an angry glance, doubting, uncertain.
“Rayne, it’s okay.” I sit down at the table, smiling at them. “You guys are flat out in love with each other. How long since you had the talk?” I place a certain emphasis on the words, the talk. Every couple has one, when they get it they’re gonna be together.
“Two months.”
I see it. A new relationship, confidence not yet strong, inclined to be private and protective. They’d had plans for the two of them this evening, I’m an intruder and messed that up and Rayne’s alarms are all going off.
“First of all, both of you are always welcome here.” For Rayne’s benefit, I fill in a few high points of my incarceration, my parole, again asserting my innocence.
“But what are you doing hanging out with Tharcia’s mom?”
“Me and Montana were friends in school years ago.”
“You call her Montana?”
“And other unprintable stuff. But Rayne, you don’t need to be jealous of me.”
“I’m not,” she says defiantly.
“You said you are, in so many words.”
“Oh, well, Tharcia’s mom keeps wanting to bust us up. What the fuck do you want with her?” She’s looking hot daggers my way.
I look at Tharcia, shaking my head slowly. “I just don’t know.” There’s a connection neither of us can name.
Tharcia grins. “He listens to me.” Then she says, apropos of nothing, “do you have a high school yearbook?”
Makes me think. I have been getting rid of stuff lately. “Somewhere upstairs there are some boxes. Might be around.”
Tharcia looks at me appraisingly, her eyes down to slits. In the other room, my phone is chirping. When I pick it up, I am so delighted. Montana.
“What are you doing?” she demands without preamble.
“Washing my dishes. Want to dry?”
“You know we’re seeing Wolfe tomorrow, three o’clock.”
“How could I forget? You want to have coffee before that.”
“You got it.”
There’s a silence. Then, cautiously, “Hear from my daughter today?”
“Your daughter is sitting right here with her friend. We’re having a beer.”
“She’s there? With who? Who with?”
“Rayne.”
Montana curses under her breath. “I have told her they’re not to hang together. I want you to send her home right away.”
“Jeez Mon, grab a brain. She’s eighteen not eight.”
“Nineteen,” yells Tharcia from the kitchen. Rayne laughs and whispers something.
“You stay out of it Stuka. That girl is a bad influence on her. So are you.”
“Hey look. I’m not messing in your family crappola. You guys work it out. Later.”
“I want to know where my jewelry is,” Montana gets out as I hit the bye-bye button.
Walk back in the kitchen, Tharcia’s sitting on Rayne’s lap, looking into her eyes and winding a strand of dark hair around one finger. They’ve been whispering quietly together while I was talking to Montana. Tharcia kisses Rayne soft on the lips, then moves back to her chair. I have a momentary image of how sweet they must be together. And jealousy? It’s me that’s jealous of Rayne, not the other way round. Wild Thing.
“Nineteen, eh? Thought you were eighteen.”
“My birthday was yesterday, you had a big party to celebrate.” Tharcia smiles.
“Hey, you didn’t play the birthday card. But I’m in the double doghouse with your mom. Not only are you here at my place but your banned girlfriend is with you. What’s up with that?”
“My mom,” Tharcia says, “is less than open-minded.”
“To put it mildly,” Rayne adds.
“That bites. And her birthday gift to you was a shiner.”
Tharcia finds this funny. “Stuka, it feels so normal,” she says, “hanging here with you.”
“Way different from my folks too,” Rayne adds. They are nodding agreement at each other. I get that Rayne is a few years older. I’m sure she sees Tharcia as a gift from the mystic universe, one she’s waited a lifetime for. No wonder she’s edgy.
My phone goes again. I can’t believe my luck. Wolfe. Who next, Mick?
“What?”
“Good evening Mr. Clay, so sorry to disturb you. So happens I have an urgent matter to attend to. In your neighborhood, as it works out. Will it be convenient for me to drop by in a short while?”
“I’m actually having a quiet social evening, detective. If you don’t mind. Private. We are meeting tomorrow afternoon, correct?”
“Mr. Clay I do hope you understand, a matter of some delicacy has come up. I need to speak to you directly.”
I sigh. “Knock yourself out. I’ll be here.”
Looking up from the phone, I see headlights cutting through the trees outside. Wolfe already? I walk out on the porch waiting for him to park. Stiff wind blowing now, small branches and other debris fill the air. Car parks, someone gets out, definitely not Wolfe, his jeans aren’t that tight. Dayum, Montana made good time. Or is it because, like the night Roswell got shot, she was magically just around the corner? And recalling my convo with Tharcia the night before, I am so pissed at Montana I can’t think straight. She’s become a major lowlife in my view and I am completely unsympathetic to anything she might want.
“Drop in any time. Were you down at the pizza joint?”
“Where’s Tharcia?”
“Inside talking to Rayne.”
“That little twat.” No idea which one she means.
“Verbal abuse is abuse, dim bulb. You had better start thinking straight about your daughter.”
“What the fuck you talking about Cicero?”
“I need to know something,” I tell her. “What were you doing in Santa Cruz the night Roswell was shot?”
“Screw you bozo, last thing I need is you asking me questions.”
“I’ll ask all the questions I want, Montana. How did my case get switched to you in the first place? I was doing fine with Yamamoto, we understood each other. And why did that happen exactly on the day Roswell jumped out of my glider?”
“It was a procedural thing, merely routine. I’m getting cold let’s go in.”
“In a minute. Also the second night I stayed at your house, you got up and went out, late, maybe 2 am. Where did you go?”
“Happens a few times a month. Parolee gets busted, or some domestic situation. Smooths things over if I can be there. Only gone three hours. Plays hell with my Z-time.”
Meanwhile, I’m damn sure we had sex around then. Did I hallucinate that?
“Who’s your boyfriend? Who is it calls you? It’s not Mick is it?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen you do it, Tharcia says there’s someone. I told you once I’d split if you wanted him to come over but y
ou said no.”
First she reminds me she’d ordered me to stay away from Tharcia, which I get means don’t talk to her. But then she basically admits it about talking to Mick, gets a little pensive. But the softer mood passes quickly. “Get out of my way,” she says. “I want to go in.”
She bangs in the door and two seconds later there’s a three-way screaming match starring her, Tharcia and Rayne. Gotta hand it to Tharcia, she definitely keeps up. But naturally, she’s learned from the best.
The ladies, and by now I’m using that term loosely, are into round two of personal recriminations when I hear footsteps on the porch. I open the door and let Wolfe in. The women see him and Montana puts the brakes on. He says hello in a cool way, calling her Agent Harrison all formal. Montana’s face takes on a scared rabbit look, probably thinking that the 3 pm Monday meeting has been moved to right now. And the two of us missed the rehearsal.
Tharcia introduces herself and Rayne. Wolfe registers the bruise on Tharcia’s face, but says nothing. The shiner is better today, or she’s done a better job of covering it, but Wolfe has seen it all before.
“Shall we all sit in the living room,” Wolfe suggests. We mill briefly, finally sit.
“I had come primarily to speak to Mr. Clay. However, Agent Harrison, since you are here I have questions for you as well.”
Montana returns a defiant glare.
Wolfe addresses himself to Tharcia and Rayne. “I hope you ladies will treat this discussion as confidential. First of all, Agent Harrison, there is an issue that’s come up among probation staff. Specifically, Mr. Yamamoto. He has spoken to me about the transfer of Mr. Clay’s case to you, which finalized on Monday of last week.”
Monday, I’m thinking to myself. That was two days before my acro student tried to kill me. Two days before I saw Montana for the first time in two decades. Two days before Roswell expires on my porch.
“Purely a routine matter,” Montana explains this calmly enough, but her eyes look hunted.
“Indeed,” Wolfe replies evenly. “In Mr. Yamamoto’s words, there had been some consideration offered, privately, if you were to receive Mr. Clay’s case. Exactly what would be your interest in having Mr. Clay’s case transferred to you?”
“None specifically,” Montana replies. “Takeo was preparing for vacation, then retirement. My caseload was light, and I recognized the name. Having known Clay in school I thought I might have some insight that could help him.”
“So you did enter into an agreement with Mr. Yamamoto?”
Montana looks uncomfortable. “We discussed it briefly. It was a matter of simple routine. We swap cases all the time.”
“I see,” Wolfe says, finished with that thread for the moment. He turns to me.
“Mr. Clay. What of your movements the night of Roswell’s murder? When we questioned you on several occasions about that night, you maintained that you had met Agent Harrison at a jogging path in San Jose. We later found through your phone records that you were actually somewhere in Felton. Can you explain the discrepancy?”
“Detective,” I say wearily. “You and I have already discussed that. I admitted misleading you on that point. I was here in Felton. I had arrived home earlier, when I found Roswell.”
Montana is staring traitor daggers at me. Rayne and Tharcia both try to talk once, but Rayne wins this one.
“Are you saying there was a dead guy on your porch? What the hell is going on here?”
Tharcia is nodding, she knows enough.
“Then why, Mr. Clay, did you lie about that?”
“As I explained to you Detective, when I first arrived, I had no idea it was Roswell.” I turn to Tharcia and Rayne and add, “Roswell is the student jumped out of my glider. I wanted someone to be with me when I discovered the body. Someone with more credibility than a parolee. Montana said she was in San Jose, I believed her. So that was our story.”
“Like hell,” Montana scoffs.
Wolfe ignores her and gives me an appraising look. “So Mr. Clay are we to believe that you had nothing to do with Roswell’s killing?”
“You should, because it’s the truth. I didn’t know the guy. Plus which I don’t have any firearms. Your people searched the house. Hell, you searched the entire property far as I know. No guns, no ammo. Parole violation, see? I passed your residue test.”
Blinding flash from the windows, forest outside lights up as the world’s largest strobe goes off, followed close by a deafening crack of thunder. Concussion rocks the floorboards. House shakes, lights go out. Firelight from the woodstove is the only illumination. First thing comes to me: the swimming pool. Power goes out there, my income is threatened. My holiday decor has gone out and with it the alert lights, I have no eyes on what’s happening in the pool. I do have a generator, but no way can I start it with two cops around. I jump up.
“Stay put everybody I’ve got candles.” I also have flashlights by the doors so I quickly grab one turn it on, hand to Rayne who is closest. Soon I have a dozen candles placed around the room, flickering gaily. The room takes on a party atmosphere, or maybe it’s a séance. Everybody is checking their phones, no one has any bars.
“Agent Harrison,” Wolfe says, unfazed as usual, “what was your particular connection with Mr. Clay in high school that leads you to believe your knowledge of him could influence a criminal case that took place 15 years after you last saw each other?”
Montana jerks forward in her chair, her face threatening. “Detective that is private information. Strictly between us!”
Wolfe prods further. “Could it actually be that you have a score to settle with Mr. Clay? That you’re looking for a way to get even?”
While I feel that many of the things I had done with Montana tagging along should not be discussed in any company, I can relish Wolfe drilling on her.
“Go ahead Montana,” I prod, “tell us why you wanted to take over my case.”
“It’s only because you’re such a chicken shit,” she spits out. This pisses me off.
“I’m a chicken shit? You were a major Looney Tune back then. You left town without telling me. You didn’t attend grad, didn’t complete senior year.”
“Nobody’s business but my own,” she says defiantly.
“It is my business,” I reply hotly. “It mega hurt my feelings you didn’t call when my mom died. Not even a card. I knew you were around. I thought we were friends. I thought we were more than that. Never heard from you.”
“Yeah,” Tharcia says, leaning forward eyes ablaze. “Who else were you involved with then, besides Stuka? Always some deep dark secret with you. Who do you talk to on the phone every night?”
“You put a lid on it Tharcia!” Montana’s losing the rest of her composure.
Tharcia is close to tears, something really bothering her. “Everything is national security with you. Including why you can’t accept me for who I am. You’re such a goddamned Puritan.”
“Are those ears on your head, or ornaments? Shut your pie hole!”
It’s Rayne’s turn to get into the act. “You’re such a bitch the way you treat her, Hannah,” she spits out. “You always think you know more but you’re really such a... She’s a much finer person than you deserve for your daughter. And you’re evil to be dissing and hitting on her.” Rayne sits back glaring fiercely.
“Go to hell you little perv. You have no business in my daughter’s life, you’re not welcome.” Montana’s about to say something more, but Tharcia jumps up.
“Mom! How can you diss my best friend like that? And why are you so messed up about me?”
Montana now looks like she’s the one close to tears. She points an accusing finger at me. “You have no idea how it is to find yourself pregnant in high school, you have no idea how hard it is to raise a child totally on your own, far from home.”
“You’re the one dropped out of sight!” I shout.
All the while Wolfe is sitting back, head turning from one to the other as he follows the conversati
on. Then the detective drops his bombshell.
Turning to Montana, Wolfe says, “Now, Agent Harrison, I think I know why you lied about being in San Jose. Was it because you were in Felton that evening? For a reason? Was it because you were the one who shot the unfortunate Mr. Roswell? Did you kill Roswell by mistake, because you originally came here to murder Mr. Clay?”
Tharcia shrieks, “Mom!”
“The reason I was here, detective, is I’m still in love with him,” Montana says pointing at me. Her eyes flash in the candlelight. I’m thinking lust, possibly. Love, no chance.
“Hardly convincing,” Wolfe says. “You have known Mr. Clay’s whereabouts since he was arrested four years ago, if not before. Yet only now you make your feelings known to him.”
“Don’t you dare call me a liar!” Montana jumps to her feet, stands over Wolfe. “It was a simple attempt to maintain my personal space,” she says hotly.
But then I recall Montana’s gasp of surprise when I phoned her after finding Roswell. I speak up. “Montana, you were shocked when I phoned you that night. A call from a dead man would surprise anyone.”
Montana whirls at me, but she’s not attacking, she’s pleading. “Stuka you don’t even see!”
“Mom! You came here to kill him?” Tharcia’s face is contorted with disbelief.
Wolfe speaks up, voice forceful. “Officer Yamamoto tells me you have a quid pro quo agreement. What is the precise nature of that?”
“Mom! Answer me!” Tharcia’s voice is pleading and incredulous at the same time.
Montana stands immobile in the middle of the room, looking from Wolfe to me and back again. Her face is a twist of wild anger. Am I mistaken, or is her hand twitching in the direction of her shoulder holster?
“Ladies, everyone, please.” Wolfe has finally had enough. He stands face to face with Montana, trying to manage her down by physical presence.
Two bright flashes and a double thunderclap strike in close succession. We turn to the windows, but of course it’s even blacker out there cuz we’re all momentarily blinded. The door blows open, extinguishing some of the candles. I get the door closed. As the noise and shuffle die down, a car starts outside, headlights race away through lashing trees. Montana’s no longer with us.