Cast in Stone

by G. M. Ford

  I bought us three rooms. A couple of doubles for them to share and a single for me. Coming out of the motel office, I didn't bother to check for them in the van. The pink neon sign said COCKTAILS. They were bellied up to the short bar, slurping 'em down like antelope at a water hole. I wedged myself in between George and Norman.

  "Good day's work, fellas," I said. They gargled agreement. "I've got an idea," I said. They were wary.

  "Why don't we get some food, a bag of ice, and some cups from the store and take it down by the river and have us a little party? It's a nice night out. That way, you guys won't be blowing all your money in here, and we can party to our heart's content without disturbing anybody. We've got enough booze to float a driftboat. What say?"

  They checked with each other. Why-not faces.

  George was still parched and pissy.

  "You wouldn't be worried about our deportment now, would you, Leo? You're afraid we can't have a few in polite company without pukin' on our shoes. Is that it?"

  Everyone stopped swallowing and strained to hear.

  "If you guys want to stay in here and pay a couple, three bucks a shotr that's your business. I just think we'd have a better time for a whole lot less money, that's all."

  "We?" said George. "You mean, like his majesty is going to have a few with the peasants?"

  For the first time all day, I had everyone's attention.

  "Damn right," I said quickly.

  "We better get to the store before it closes," said Harold.

  Ralph inhaled both ends of a fresh boilermaker and followed Norman out the door.

  21

  I sat on the floor in the open door of the van, gently massaging my right knee. Norman wandered nearby, flossing his teeth with a matchbook cover. George, Harold, and Ralph were lounging in a bed of pink-and-white petunias, heads thrown back, catching a little sun. For them, this was just another Thursday. I, on the other hand, felt like I'd been threshed and baled. Squinting painfully in the clear midmorning light, I laid out the plans for the day.

  "Okay, listen up," I started. "Don't make me repeat myself."

  "He don't look so good, do he, fellas?" joked Harold.

  "A little green around the gills, if you ask me," said George.

  "Didn't eat his breakfast neither," said Norman, who, not coincidentally, had kindly eaten it for me.

  "I don't know how you guys do it," I confessed.

  "Practice. Practice. Practice," said Ralph.

  The only thing they liked better than drinking was talking about drinking, about who had gotten how shitfaced, on what, with whom and when, which in turn generally led to a nostalgic romp through the vomiting hall of fame. I wasn't in the mood for color commentary. God knows we'd consumed enough booze before I'd stumbled back to my room and gone comatose. Either giant moths had gnawed out the

  knee of my jeans, or somewhere along the way, I most have taken a fall. The crusted bruise that I'd discovered in the shower this morning pretty much ruled out the moth hypothesis.

  "George."

  "Yo."

  "You and Harold and Norman are going to divide Concrete up among you. George, you do the far end of town. The cops are right up at the end of the street. Talk to them first. Talk to everybody. Put up as many pictures with phone numbers as you can. It's a lot bigger than the places we've been doing, so it's going to take a few hours."

  "Seventeen hundred people, give or take. Used to be called Cement City. Produced forty percent of the cement used for Grand Coulee Dam."

  Mercifully, Norman stopped on his own. I rolled my eyes at George.

  "Don't look at me," he said. "You got him started on this geography shit. I was perfectly happy with the zoo parade."

  "What am going to do?" asked Ralph

  "You're coming with me. We're going to head up to Rockport and Marblemount. That's as far as this trip is going. The two of us ought to be able to cover those two in about the time these guys do Concrete."

  "And then?" asked Harold.

  "Then, I'm going to buy you guys the best lunch in town and drive you back to Seattle, where I'm going to hand each of you a bunch of money. How's that sound?"

  At last, we had consensus.

  22

  The Sauk River leaks out from the North Cascades like blue-white breast milk. The same limestone deposits that attracted the Portland Cement Company leach their sedimentary waters into the river, creating an odd moving carpet of pearlescent opacity. The river was, unfortunately, the highlight of the trip.

  "We struck out, huh, Leo?" said Ralph as we recrossed the Sauk on our way back to Concrete.

  "Unless one of the guys got a hit in Concrete."

  "Whatcha gonna do if we come up dry?"

  "I'm not sure," I said. "I'm probably going to go to my client and tell her it's over. Then maybe, depending on what she wants to do, maybe take what I've got -to the cops."

  "What'll the cops do?"

  "That's hard to tell. Probably nothing. What I've got so far is pretty borderline. The heat won't usually get involved unless their noses get rubbed in it."

  The digital sign on the State Bank of Concrete blinked 1:38, 62 degrees as we pulled back into town. As I eased the van into an empty parking space, Norman filled the driver's-side window.

  "You guys done?" I asked.

  He nodded.

  "Where's the crew?"

  His eyes moved to the Hub Tavern and back. He pushed the button, yanked open my door, and pressed

  his massive forehead hard against mine. He smelled of mothballs and mildew. "The lady in the post office," he said.

  23

  She was a stocky woman of sixty or so, prematurely purple hair cut short, combed like a boy. She wore a striped workshirt under a brown leather vest, blue jeans, and work boots. A deeply undershot lower jaw gave her the aggressive profile of a largemouth bass. She was taking her time, perusing each envelope carefully before sliding it into the back of the appropriate mailbox.

  "Didn't say I knew for sure who she was."

  "Oh," I said. "Norman thought—"

  "Big fella needs to take his head out," she said with finality.

  I waited, stretching out over the counter, trying vainly to establish eye contact as she sorted mail.

  "Just said I thought I knew those eyes. She used to come in once in a while with her momma. If it's who I'm thinking of, then she musta had her nose fixed. When I seen her she had one of them wavy noses, like it had been broke a bunch of times, but I remember the eyes."

  "Whose eyes did you think they were?" She stopped sorting mail and looked at me for the first time.

  "Thought it might have been the older Hasu girl." I waited for more. It wasn't forthcoming. "What can you tell me about her?" I tried.

  "Stubbornest little thing I ever seen." "How's that?"

  "Her momma used to bring all them kids from the Christian school to town on Saturday afternoons, and give each of 'em a quarter. Her momma was the teacher. Never did like that woman. Always felt like she was lookin' down her nose at me. All them other kids would hustle right over to Howard's for candy, but not that one. No, sir. We used to have this gumball machine in here. The kind where sometimes you got gum and once in a while you'd get some little plastic prize. You remember those?"

  I admitted I did.

  "Well, that little one—she couldn't have been more than eight or nine at the time—she decided she wanted this funny-looking plastic engagement ring that was in there, and I'm tellin' you, she come in here every Saturday for the better part of (two months cashed her quarter into pennies, and fed 'ejn into that machine until she got that durn thing. Never seen nothing like it. Most kids lose interest after a while. Not that one though. She was gonna have it, or else."

  "You remember her when she got older?"

  Wrong question. With a sigh, she set the cardboard box of mail on a scarred oak table and walked over to face me.

  "Mister. You listen to me now. I appreciate that you got a job to do, but
there's certain kinds of things a lady don't talk to strangers about. You hear what I'm sayin'? Hell. I was married to my last husband for nineteen years, and we never mustered up the gumption to talk about those Hasus and all those goin'-ons, so I sure as hell ain't gonna stand herein front of God and everybody and run off at the mouth to a perfect stranger about it."

  "I can appreciate that," I said.

  "Good. 'Cause that Hasu family isn't somethin' I'm willin' to talk about. 'Specially not that Terra Hasu. It's not something the community wants dredged up again, neither. I shoulda kept my mouth shut to the big fella. It's just when I saw . . . anyways . . ." She waved me off. "Never mind."

  "Sorry," I said for no particular reason.

  She went back to her mail, but this time it was just for show, shuffling rather than sorting.

  I waited again. She continued to fiddle with the mail in the box, not looking my way. When it became apparent that I wasn't going to fade into the woodwork, she walked back over to the window.

  "You want to know about the Hasus, you go talk to Mr. High-and-Mighty Gardner over at the police station. Our non-duly elected sheriff, he knows what I'm talkin' about. You go ask him."

  "Gardner," I repeated. "At the police station."

  "Bruce Gardner. Chief of Police. You ask him."

  "Thanks."

  I started for the door. She brought me up short. "And don't let Mr. Pious fool you. He's got personal knowledge."

  24

  The boys were shadowboxing and trading insults around the vans as I crossed the street. A rogue's gallery of wanted posters' faces adorned the front of the barn-red building. The eyes seemed to follow me in.

  Chief Gardner wasn't on duty. Officer Milliken was a leathery little guy with squinty eyes and a thick piece of dried egg yolk decorating his blue tie.

  "The chief won't be in till five," he announced.

  Allison Stark's visage glared up from the chiefs in-basket.

  "Could you maybe give him a call? I really need to have a word with him."

  "You one of them with the pictures?"

  "Yeah, I am." I took out my PI license and showed it to him. He handed it back. I passed him another picture of Allison. He smoothed it on the desk in front of him. He shook his head.

  "Never seen her before. But then I've only been around for six years." He smiled. "In these parts, that makes me practically a transient. Chief Gardner, he's born and raised here."

  "Could you call him?"

  "You say it's important?"

  "Yes, it is."

  He thought it over.

  "Stay here, I'll be right back."

  He crossed the room and opened the frosted glass door behind the chiefs desk, revealing a small dispatcher's closet. He ignored the radio, instead dialing the old black rotary phone. I couldn't make out what he was saying, so I sauntered over. He covered the mouthpiece.

  "Chief says you'll have to wait till five. He's taking his boy fishing this afternoon."

  "Tell him I need to talk to him about the Hasu girl."

  "Hasu?"

  "That's right." I pronounced it again.

  He told him, and then he listened. And listened. I couldn't hear the words coming over the line, but the staccato cadence and the movement of Milliken's eyes told me what I needed to know. Gingerly, Milliken set the phone in the cradle.

  "Whew boy." He exhaled. "You sure got his attention, mister. I haven't heard him that excited since they tried to recall him for enforcing the parking regulations. Be about fifteen minutes."

  I headed across the street to the crew.

  It was more like twenty. He slid the blue patrol car to a stop in front of the station, shouldered open the door, leaving it bouncing on its hinges as he quick-stepped into the station, waving a sheaf of papers with the motion of his left hand.

  Before I got a chance to move, Gardner was back out the door, trailed by Officer Milliken, who trotted along behind, holding his gun to his hip as he loped along.

  He made a beeline for the Boys and me. Gardner was a tall man, stoop-shouldered from years of trying to appear shorter. A redhead with a walrus moustache and an untamed mop of carrot hair combed straight forward on his head. He must have owned Eddie Bauer stock. Crisp red-flannel shirt, green suspenders

  under a new khaki fishing vest. Several iridescent steelhead flies stuck in the little sheepskin patch on his left shoulder. He pushed a torn handful of Allison Stark posters under my chin.

  "Are you responsible for these?" he demanded.

  Strips of broken masking tape fluttered like pennants.

  "Sure am," I said pleasantly.

  His face was nearly as red as his hair. "Who gave you permission?"

  "Permission to what?"

  "To deface public property."

  "What public property?"

  He waved the flyers in my face again.

  "These damn things are all over town."

  "I certainly hope so. It's costing me a fortune."

  "Don't get smart with me."

  "That'd be a waste of time now, wouldn't it?"

  "This is littering," he persisted. "Littering carries a fine of up to five hundred dollars and or thirty days in jail."

  From behind me, a voice called out, "I seen 'em jaywalking too, Chief. Why doncha run 'em in for that while you're at it?"

  I turned to check out the voice. The crew had formed a menacing semicircle right behind me. The sidewalk between Hub Tavern and the Concrete Herald building had filled with locals, several still holding beer glasses.

  "Move along now, folks. Go about your business," Gardner shouted over my shoulder. "This is a police matter."

  Nobody moved. An undertone of voices rolled over the street. A shrill voice rose from the back of the sidewalk.

  "Why don't you and Barney Fife lock 'em all up?" "Give 'em the death penalty." shouted another.

  A derisive chuckle now rippled through the crowd. Officer Milliken's eyes darted around like a spotlight at a prison break.

  Chief Gardner opened his mouth to reply, thought better of it, and snapped it shut. Instead he turned his attention back to me.

  "I want you and these . . ." He seemed to be lost for a noun. "Gentlemen," he said finally, "on your way. Right now. Don't even stop for gas. Consider yourselves damn lucky I'm not running you in."

  With that, he turned on his heel and stalked back toward the station. Somebody in the crowd gave him a wolf whistle.

  "What about the girl in the picture?" I said to his back.

  He stopped, turned, and wagged a finger at me. "Don't press your luck."

  I walked up close. His breath smelled of old coffee. I spoke softly.

  "Look," I whispered. "You're the law here. I respect that." I threw a look back at the crowd. "You seem to have enough trouble of your own. I'm not here to make any of that worse, but you need to understand that I'm not going away. I've put a lot of time and miles on this case and until now I haven't come up with squat."

  "You still don't have anything," he said.

  "No, Chief Gardner," I said. "Actually, I do. It's not much, but it's more than I had before."

  "And what's that?"

  "A rumor," I said. "A rumor regarding you and this Hasu girl. We can have this out here in public. You can arrest me, but two hours later, when I'm back on the street, I'll just start knocking on doors again. You need to understand that I'm prepared to knock on every door in this town if that's what it takes."

  I gestured to the swelling throng on the sidewalk.

  "Excuse me, Chief, but I can't help noticing that

  folks around these parts don't seem real supportive of your efforts. I've got a feeling that if I work at it hard enough, I can find out what I want to know from one of them."

  Before he could respond, I added, "What I'd prefer, though, is that you and I have a nice private discussion. You know, one-on-one. Nice and discreet. It's up to you."

  He scanned the crowd as he thought it over. "Let's take a walk," he sai
d.

  25

  I waited until we'd rounded the corner at the east end of Main, away from the gaze of the crowd. We walked in the shade, along the red, weathered side of a defunct Albers Feed Store.

  "Excuse me for asking, but isn't Chief of Police an elected office around here?"

  Gardner gave a derisive snort and stopped in his tracks. "So they keep reminding me."

  "So, why all the animosity?"

  "Because I insist on acting like a policeman. I had the nerve to enforce the parking regulations, and I don't want drunks driving all over the valley on Saturday nights," he said bitterly.

  "Sounds reasonable to me," I said.

  "That makes two of us, then. The guy I replaced, Marvin Hansen, he'd been sheriff for forty-one years. He dropped dead three months ago over at the cafe."

  "And you inherited the job."

  "In all Marvin's time, nobody ever got a parking ticket. Nobody ever put money in the meters. Everybody ignored the burning ban. If you got drunk and broke up one of the bars, Marvin just drove you home. If you crashed your truck driving dead drunk, Marvin drove you home and called a wrecker for you."

  "Probably explains his job security."

  This trenchant observation got me another snort.

  Who said I knew this girl anyway?" he asked as we continued our stroll south out toward the highway.

  "I don't see how that's going to improve anybody's situation."

  He stopped, drew himself up to his full height, and pinned me with his gaze. "Yeah," he sighed, continuing his walk. "I suppose you're right."

  He stopped again and turned back toward me. Stepping in close.

  "Why should I tell you anything? Maybe I just run you and those tramps out of town. If I start making some calls, I can run you all the way out of the county."

  "I don't doubt it. But that's not gonna be a help. I meant what I said back there. I'm not going away. If mat's what it takes, I'll be back tomorrow with more of those guys and my attorney."